I stare at his pipe as it bobs up and down, then give a start when it transforms into a giant black snake. It slithers out of his mouth and winds itself around his neck. The pirate continues, seemingly oblivious to the enormous snake wrapping itself around his head.
“I wouldn’t let my son drink this, and he’s older than you. You can’t be more than, what, fourteen?”
“Sixteen. Watch it!”
I reach forward and smack the pirate square in the mouth, knocking the snake to the floor. It lies there, coiling and shuddering, then bursts into a rainbow.
“Pretty.” I wave my hands, trying to catch the ribbons of light spiraling in front of me. A chorus of voices fills the room then—they’re coming from the rainbow. “Listen. Can you hear that? The rainbow is singing!” I open my mouth and sing along with it. “Greensleeves, la-la-la who but my Lady Greeeensleeeeves…”
“God’s blood, you’re a mess,” the pirate mutters.
He picks his pipe off the ground and tucks it inside his cape, then he takes me by the arm and leads me to the door. I take offense to this. He really shouldn’t be touching me, him a pirate and me a young girl and all. And I definitely shouldn’t be letting a strange man lead me outside and to God knows where. But I can’t seem to stop singing long enough to tell him this.
“Why don’t we get you some air?” he says.
“There’s air in here. I can see it! It’s pink. Did you know air was pink?” I babble away, looking up at the pirate as he guides me out into the now-crowded alley. He’s really tall. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Peter.” He turns away from me. “George, there you are. Thanks for coming so fast. So? What do you think?”
“Nice to meet you, Peter George. I’m Elizabeth Grey. Do you see the stars, Peter George? They’re spelling your name in the sky. P-E-T…” I jab my finger at the twinkling lights that dance in front of my eyes. They’re so close I can almost touch them.
“Aye, that’s her,” comes a voice in my ear.
I jump and give a little shriek. There’s a boy standing next to me. Where did he come from? He’s looking me up and down, and I stare back. Dark brown hair, light blue eyes. He’s dressed well enough, in a green cloak, blue trousers, black boots. Something about him looks so familiar, but I can’t seem to place it. I open my mouth to ask him, but instead start giggling.
“She drunk?” the boy asks.
“Roaring, and then some,” Peter George says. “Absinthe. Damned Joe, put it in the ale and didn’t bother telling her. She’s too young to be messing with that stuff. But, you’re sure?”
Absinthe! So that’s why the ale was green. I’ve seen courtiers drink absinthe and get a little crazy afterward. Good thing it doesn’t have that effect on me.
“She’s a bit haggard at the moment, but it’s definitely her,” the boy says. “Think she’s in any condition to talk?”
“I can talk,” I blurt. “See, look. I’m doing it right now. I like to talk.” This isn’t true, really, unless I’m with Caleb or I’ve had too much to drink. Then Joe says I talk ten to the dozen, which is his way of saying a lot.
Peter George and the boy look at each other.
“Fine. Let’s get her somewhere less crowded, see what we can get out of her.”
The boy loops his arm through mine and guides me down Kingshead Alley and through a series of streets toward the river. I notice they take the long way, avoiding Tyburn.
“We’re just going to help you back to the palace and have a little chat on the way,” the boy says. “If you don’t mind.”
“Pinwheels,” I reply, stumbling on a rock.
“That so?” He steadies me. “I don’t see any, but I’ll take your word for it.”
“No, your eyes. They spin like pinwheels. What’s your name again?”
“George.”
“Funny. That other man is a George, too. Peter George—whoops!” I trip over the hem of my cloak and tumble to the ground.
“No, he’s just Peter. I’m George. Here, let me help you up.” He pulls me to my feet and I notice we’re the same height.
“You’re awfully short,” I say.
“Short? Not me! Maybe you’re the short one. Ever think about that?”
I consider it. “My God, you’re right. You must be very clever.”
George cracks a laugh. “If only everyone was this easy to convince.”
Just Peter comes over, grips my shoulders, and peers down at me, forcing me to look at him.
“George says you live at the palace?” he says.
I nod.
“What exactly do you do there?”
“I’m a maid.” The lie rolls easily enough off my tongue. I used to be a maid, I still sleep with the maids, sometimes I wish I still were a maid.
“A maid?” He blinks in surprise. “What kind? Chamber? Lady’s?”
“Scullery.”
I can’t help but notice he looks disappointed. “For how long?”
“Since I was nine.”
“Nine?” He frowns. “Where are your parents?”
“Dead.”
“I see.” Just Peter’s scowl softens. “You’ve been in the kitchen this whole time?”
I nod again. “I can kill chickens, cook them, too, and ducks, peacocks, you name it. I make a good stew, decent bread; I can even churn butter. And my floors are so clean, you can eat off them.” I wince, knowing how stupid that sounds. But I have my orders.
Just Peter waves his hand. “Very well. But besides that, is there anything about you that is, say, different from the other maids? Unusual?”
Only about a hundred things. Well, maybe not a hundred. Maybe just one.
“No, sir. I’m really very ordinary.”
He turns to George. “Veda must have meant someone else. This can’t have been who she wanted us to find. I thought for a moment, maybe, if she’d been a maid for the queen. But this girl, she can’t help us. She’s just a lass. George?”
George isn’t paying attention. He’s staring at me, the most curious expression on his face.
“Perhaps you’re right,” George says, turning away from me. “Let’s take her back to the palace. It’s late, and she’ll be missed.”
We start walking back to court, taking the graveled path by the Severn River to avoid the busy streets. We stumble along, me falling and George and Just Peter taking turns pulling me to my feet and dusting off my cloak until the path ends in a flight of steps that leads to the palace gates.
“Here we are,” Just Peter says. “George, you ready?”
“Absolutely.” George grins at me. I’m about to smile back when I see his teeth stretch into long black fangs. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Elizabeth?” I open them to find Just Peter’s face only inches from mine. “George will take care of you, make sure you get in all right. In the future, though, try to steer clear of the absinthe?”
I nod. For a pirate, he’s very nice. I just wish his face would stop melting. “Okay, Just Peter.” I close my eyes again. “I will.”
He chuckles softly. “Not Just Peter, love. Just… uh, right, then. George, I’ll see you later.” He turns and disappears into the darkness.
George helps me up the stairs to the heavy iron gate at the top, which opens into the palace gardens. The guard unlocks it for us, and George leads me inside.
“We’re home,” he says.
“We?” I blurt, surprised.
George laughs. “Yes. I live here, too. You still don’t recognize me, do you? I’m King Malcolm’s new fool.”
I THOUGHT HE LOOKED FAMILIAR. “You don’t look like a fool.”
“I should hope not. I’m a fool by occupation, not presentation. And only occasionally by reputation.” He grins.
“You’re too young to be a fool,” I persist, swaying a little.
“Not at all.” George takes me by the shoulders. “I’m eighteen, which is the most foolish age of all. All the troubles of a man, yet none of the excuses of a
boy.” He leads me down the dirt path that winds around the edge of the garden. “We need to get you to your room before anyone sees what condition you’re in.” He looks around. “But I don’t know how—”
“Oh, I do.” I grab his sleeve. “Follow me.”
I drag him off the path and across the grass toward a vine-covered wall. I walk along it, trailing my hand through the leaves.
“Know what’s funny about this palace?” I say. “All the gargoyles. Lots of them are hidden, but when you find one, they’re always next to something interesting. See?”
I stop and point to the little snout that’s almost completely buried by the ivy. Stick my hand into the greenery and feel around for the door latch I know is there. Got it. I lift it and hear a tiny click, then pull apart the curtain of vines to reveal a small doorway.
He’s doing it again: staring at me with that funny expression, his dark eyebrows raised, the tiniest smirk on his face.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing. But—you’re a funny girl.”
“Not really.”
“Yes, really. I mean, what does a girl from the kitchen know about secret doors?”
I tut a little. “This is nothing.”
“You don’t say.” He shakes his head, then gestures to the door. “Ladies first.”
I squeeze through the tiny opening, and George climbs in after me. I lean out to rearrange the vines before closing the door behind me. Inside, it’s pitch black.
“There’s a staircase here,” I say. “If you go all the way to the top, you’ll come to a door. It opens up into the great hall, behind that huge tapestry, you know, the one with the owls and bats attacking the wizard on the table?” King Malcolm has a fondness for violent tapestries and paintings, and I hate them all.
“Aye, I know it. But what about you?”
“I’m going this way.” I jerk my thumb over my shoulder, though it’s so dark he probably can’t see. “Behind me. The hallway leads to the kitchen. The maids’ quarters are just past it.”
I stand there for a minute, waiting for him to leave. But he doesn’t. And even though I can’t see him, I can feel his eyes on me. I can’t figure out what he wants.
“I guess you can go now,” I say.
But he doesn’t move. “I would feel better if I saw you safely to your room.”
I fold my arms. “I don’t need your help.”
“I didn’t say you did,” George says mildly. “I was just being friendly. Seems as if you could use a friend.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I dunno. Hanging out in a dodgy tavern alone, drinking absinthe alone, stumbling home with a pirate and a fool, alone—”
“What’s it to you, nosy parker?”
“Last name’s Cavendish, actually. But come on. Let’s be friends. I’m new around here. I could use someone to show me how things are done.”
“You are a fool if you want a kitchen maid to show you how things are done,” I mutter.
I wish he’d leave. I want nothing more than to go to my room and sleep. Forget this day ever happened. In the dark like this, the absinthe is starting to wear off and I’m beginning to remember everything. Accidentally killing that necromancer. Caleb’s kissing Katherine Willoughby. Going to the masque with her while I stay home alone.
Then I get an idea.
“If you’re King Malcolm’s fool, then I suppose you know about his Yuletide masque.”
“Aye. I’ve heard of it.”
“If you really want to know how things are done around here, that’s a good place to start. Since we’re friends now, why don’t you go with me?”
George clears his throat. “Go with you?”
“Yes.”
“To the masque?”
“Yes.”
Silence. For the third time today, I can feel my cheeks getting hot.
“What?” I say irritably. “I suppose a fool is too good to go to a dance with a maid?”
“No. It’s just… I didn’t know maids were allowed to go to masques.”
Damnation. He’s right, of course. Maids can’t go, but I wasn’t going as a maid; I was going as a witch hunter. Not that it matters, since I’ll be wearing a mask and no one will see my face anyway.
“We’re not,” I correct myself. “But you are. And as I say, I think you should take me.”
He clears his throat again. “You know, you’re very cute. And if I were at all inclined in that direction, you’d certainly be someone to consider.”
It takes me a second to realize he’s turning me down.
“A simple no would suffice,” I mutter.
“Suffice it to say, my no isn’t simple.”
“I’m not in the mood for riddles,” I snap. I’m starting to wish I hadn’t drunk that ale. Or that I’d drunk more so I’d be passed out somewhere instead of babbling like an idiot to a fool.
“I’m going to go now,” I say. “So, as I said, up those stairs, through that door, under the tapestry, and that’s that.” I turn around and walk down the hall. I’m almost to the end when I hear his voice.
“Maybe I’ll see you around sometime?”
I don’t reply. I just keep walking.
Soon the hall grows narrower and warmer, and I know I’m nearing the kitchen. Supper was over hours ago, but I can still smell the food through the wall, hear the commotion on the other side as they clean: pots banging, maids shouting, the footsteps of servants still carrying in trays from the dining hall.
My stomach starts growling, and I wonder if I can sneak inside and get something to eat without anyone seeing me. I drop to my knees and skim my hand along the wall until I feel a small notch, big enough to slip my finger through: the handle on the tiny door that opens into the kitchen between the wall and the bread oven.
I discovered this door my first week in the kitchen. I was only nine then and didn’t have the courage to open it. I didn’t know what was on the other side, but I imagined plenty: snakes, ghosts, vicious child-eating monsters. Time passed and I forgot about it, until one day Caleb came to keep me company while I did my chores.
I remember his sitting on the floor, playing against himself in a game of dice, left hand versus right. He wasn’t supposed to be in the kitchen with me; the other maids found him distracting. Caleb was only fourteen then, but he was almost six feet tall, with dark blond hair that fell over his eyes in waves. He was good-looking and he knew it. I was only twelve and I knew it, too.
I also knew he was stubborn. No amount of whining or pleading could make Caleb do something he didn’t want to—or turn him off course once he’d decided to do it. If he wanted to stay in the kitchen and distract me, he would. The door is what finally enticed him to leave that day. He swept his dice from the floor, crossed the room, and pushed it open. There was a hall on the other side, dark and dank, leading to the unknown.
He asked me to go with him, to find out where it went. I didn’t hate small, dark spaces then—not like I do now—but I still didn’t want to go. I had work to do and knew I’d get in trouble if I left. But I always followed Caleb everywhere. There wasn’t any place he could ask me to go that I wouldn’t say yes to. But I never considered the possibility that one day he would stop asking me. Never realized that without him, I had nowhere to go.
Suddenly, I don’t feel hungry anymore. I get to my feet and push through the next door, into the hall that leads to the maids’ quarters. Here, it is dim, lit only by a single torch set into a bracket in the wall. But it’s still bright enough to make my head start spinning again, just like it did inside the tavern. I lean against the wall and close my eyes to try to make it stop. I’m tired. So tired that when I hear his voice it takes me a second to respond.
“Elizabeth?”
I jerk my head up. There, at the end of the hall, is Caleb. He starts toward me, his hands clasped behind his back. My heart leaps at the sight of him.
“Where have you been?” He’s standing in front of me now, his face ha
lf hidden in the shadows. “And what happened to you? You look terrible.”
“Just what every girl wants to hear,” I mutter.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“What are you doing here?” I say. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know”—I wave my hand around—“moving in circles and swaying oh-so-gently to the music?”
Caleb smiles. “It’s midnight. The ladies have been asleep for hours.”
Something about the way he says that grates on me. As if he’s insinuating I’m not a lady because I haven’t been asleep for hours. As if I didn’t already know I was no lady without that.
“Well, tra-la-la,” I say under my breath.
“I wanted to check on you before I went to bed, only you weren’t here.”
“I was busy,” I snap. “I don’t always sit around my room waiting for you to show up. If that were the case, who knows how long I’d be stuck inside?”
Caleb’s eyes go wide. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to him this way before. But I’m so angry I can’t help myself.
“Besides, I don’t need you to check on me. I’m perfectly fine.” I move toward my door but get hit with another wave of dizziness. I throw my arms against the wall to steady myself, but my feet get tangled up in my cloak and I tumble to the floor.
“Yes, you seem perfectly fine,” Caleb says. I can hear the amusement in his voice. I would be furious if I weren’t about to throw up. “Just how much of that ale did you drink, anyway?” He helps me to my feet.
“I dunno,” I mumble, leaning against him and closing my eyes again. Things don’t spin as much when my eyes are closed.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Caleb says. “First the necromancer, now this.”
I crack open an eye to look at him. “Just having a bad day.”
“But it isn’t just today,” he says. “Lately you’ve seemed a little…”
“A little what?”
“Unhappy.”
I blink in surprise. I didn’t know he paid enough attention to me to notice.
“What makes you say that?”
The Witch Hunter Page 3