Bee Sting Cake

by Victoria Goddard

  “I’d rather get it because I’m legally entitled to it than because I’m better at Poacher than he is.”

  “You’re better at Poacher than practically everyone.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Hal said thoughtfully. “Though I didn’t think you liked playing all that much, Jemis. We’d all get out the cards, and you’d just watch ...”

  “My father taught me how to play, but he told me to be careful ... I tried to warn Roald before we went to university.”

  They all looked at me. Mr. Dart said cautiously, “Warn him about what? Playing too high? The Baron’s pockets are very deep.”

  “So, I have been told, were my grandfather’s,” I replied dryly. He winced. I hesitated a moment longer, then went on: “One of the things my father taught me was what to look for in someone who is ... addicted.”

  Mr. Dart made a surprised motion. “That’s what your quarrel was about? He was very angry. So were you,” he added conscientiously. “But he’s been polite this week.”

  “You’ve an interesting notion of polite, Mr. Dart.”

  “Wait, why did your father decide to tell you all that? When? When he came back after—after Loe?”

  “No, that summer he pulled me out of the kingschool.” I looked up at Hal. “Before my father was called up for the Seven Valleys campaign, he was home for nearly six months, and had me out of school so we could spend the time together.”

  “We were all so jealous,” Mr. Dart said reminiscently. “We used to spend hours wondering what you were up to. And then you’d come by and it was always better than we’d imagined. We’d think maybe you’d gone coney-catching, and you’d gone boar hunting up the Rag. Or that you’d gone riding with the Hunt, and instead you’d done the Leap.”

  I smiled with an unwilling pride, and the memory of sheer astonishment as we’d come up to the famous gap between Fiellan and Ghilousette.

  “I don’t know if he’d always planned to do it, or if it was just that we were up in the high country, and we came to the old road. There’s a very, very old route between south Fiellan and Ghilousette, up in the Gorbelow Hills. It might even be pre-Astandalan, from when people actually wanted to go between south Fiellan and Ghilousette. Anyhow, the road serves a couple of villages on this side, then goes up to the Cleft Pass. They say that the giants broke it in half, but no one knows what really happened. Earthquake, presumably, though now that we’ve met a dragon I don’t know. The mountain is split fully in two and the road goes right up to it—and down the other side.”

  “I’ve heard of the Leap,” Hal said. “Daredevils die there every couple of years. How old were you?”

  “Nine. My father said it would be something to tell my own son one day.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t afraid—I truly thought my father was invincible—he said that the way to make the jump was to throw my heart over and my horse would follow. It didn’t occur to me to doubt him. He went over first and I jumped after, on my old white pony.”

  “Then what?” Mr. Dart said.

  I laughed. “Then we had to jump back, of course, because otherwise you have to go all the way up to the coast. It’s weeks around. We stayed the night with some shepherds to rest the horses, jumped back across, and came back home to a great scold from my mother because we’d spent the night away without telling her. I don’t know she ever found out we’d done the Leap, actually. My father had been called up, and we never talked about it after we got home.”

  “You’ve done the Leap both ways,” Hal said flatly. “When you were nine.”

  “I don’t know if I’d have the nerve now to throw my heart over first and presume my horse would follow.” I laughed again, more bitterly. “I’ve learned other lessons from my father since then.”

  Hal frowned at me. “Didn’t you think these were strange things to be taught?”

  “Not really. He was very thorough in what he taught me and in explaining the consequences. I didn’t understand all of what he meant by the consequences, but I memorized them. When he was showing me how to play at cards he took great pains to explain how people cheated, so that I would know. And then we talked about why people cheated, how it could be for all sorts of reasons—and he gave me advice for what to do if I were winning too much, or losing too much, or got into games with the wrong sort of people ...”

  “Which includes your uncle?” Mr. Dart said, snickering. “And Mrs. Henny the Post?”

  “Which probably ought to include dragons, but I don’t see how I’m going to get out of that one.”

  “You’re already halfway to answering its riddle,” Hal said encouragingly.

  This seemed a good change of subject. I stood up so I could fish out the piece of paper where I’d copied out the riddle. Mr. Dart got up a moment after me, righted his chair, sat down again at the table. I spread out the paper, frowned at the dimness, started to reach the unlit candle towards the lit one, then remembered.

  “Ivailo ivaro ivo!” I smiled foolishly when it lit again. “Oh, goodness, I don’t care how unfashionable this is.”

  Hal chuckled. “We’ll just have to bring it back into fashion.”

  “Only if Mr. Dart will help me.”

  Mr. Dart muttered something incomprehensible without removing his pipe from his mouth, so I quirked my eyebrows at him and turned to the page. “Here we are. Between the green and the white is the door. Between the race and the runner is the lock. Between the sun and the shadow is the key. In the bright heart of the dark house is the dark heart of the bright house. And therewithin, if the sap of the tree runs true, is the golden treasure of the dark woods. Bring that to me ere the Sun and the Moon are at their furthest remove. Standard gibberish, eh?”

  “The golden treasure of the dark wood must be honey,” Hal said.

  Mr. Dart puffed for a few moments. “When are the Sun and the Moon at their furthest remove?”

  “Full moon,” I said automatically; it was a standard element in Second Period Calligraphic riddle-poetry.

  “That’s Friday, then.”

  Hal frowned. “What day is it? I’ve lost track.”

  “Today’s Wednesday,” said Mr. Dart. “That’s why I’m in town, I had a delivery to meet.”

  “What I never understand about these sorts of things in the stories,” I said, “is how tailored they are. I mean, does the dragon see the future? Make it happen? Does me trying to fulfill the terms make them come to pass?”

  “That’s the standard rule,” Mr. Dart replied, leaning back to stare up at the ceiling, where his smoke was dissolving into a slight haze. I rubbed my thumb on the ring, grateful not to be prostrate with sneezing. “Why do you ask in particular?”

  “Well, I’d already decided to run in the three-mile race. So between me and it is the ‘lock’—whatever exactly that means. But that presupposes that I am destined somehow to be the one to fulfill the terms of this riddle.”

  “You’re making my head hurt,” Hal said. “What are dragons, anyway?”

  “The physical manifestations of old chaotic magic, according to Domina Issoury.”

  “And you’re the unacknowledged heir of the Woods Noirell, which is a place of serious magic, old and new. Perhaps the dragon comes with a riddle whenever there’s a doubtful succession, so the rightful heir can prove himself. Or herself, as the case may be. That might explain the bit about ‘if the sap of the tree runs true’—metaphorically speaking, are you of the right bloodline?”

  “It seems wrong that we can figure out the second half of the riddle but not the first.”

  “But you’ve already solved the third part, haven’t you?” said Mr. Dart. “The bit about the branches and ways and turns and so forth.”

  I’d neglected to write that part down. Added it now. Frowned again. “What does this mean? The green and the white—or the Green and the White—does it have something to do with the Lady? What is it the door of? Or to? Why is it locked? What can the key that falls between the sun and the shadow be?”

  “
And then something about bright hearts and dark hearts ...”

  “In the bright heart of the dark house is the dark heart of the bright house. Is this supposed to refer to bees?”

  “There weren’t any bees in the Woods until you woke them,” Hal pointed out. “They were cursed.”

  “What is the heart of a house, anyway? In old puzzle-poetry it would be the hearth.”

  “The one we saw in the castle was hardly bright,” Hal said, laughing. “I wouldn’t stand for it at Leaveringham Castle—nor at Morrowlea, and I had to clean our grates!”

  “I helped you,” I protested.

  “Not after you started sneezing so much, you couldn’t get near the ash without coming over all faint.”

  I laughed. “Oh, Hal, I’ve missed your company.” I looked hastily at Mr. Dart to make sure I hadn’t hurt his feelings—he hadn’t mentioned any close friends made at Stoneybridge, which now that I thought of it was very strange, he was such a pleasant and good-natured and all round amiable sort of person, he ought to have been swallowed up in gregarious company. Mr. Dart was not, however, paying us much attention. He was still looking at the ceiling and blowing smoke rings.

  He seemed to feel our concerned glances, for he dropped his gaze suddenly. “In the castle,” he said, “there was something in that first room, the waiting room—every time you came close, Jemis, it wanted you to pick it up. I couldn’t help but hear it ... I was trying not to listen, usually I can make myself not hear them, but that one was shouting.”

  “What was it? The thing that was shouting?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, frustration and fear suddenly sharpening his voice. “Jemis, I’ve spent my entire life not listening. I—until today I’d forgotten why—my papa never explained that it was wild magic, he just said I’d go crazy if I listened to the voices, that whatever else I did I was never ever supposed to let anyone know I could hear them. Do you have any idea how hard it is—Jemis, you were frightened enough about asking Dominus Gleason for tutoring, and you’re already considered a wild eccentric.”

  “My reputation wasn’t why I was concerned—fine, frightened!—of Dominus Gleason. He makes my skin crawl. I fainted going into his house.”

  “Is there anyone else who can teach you magic?” Hal asked intently.

  “Magistra Bellamy, presumably, when she comes back. She’s friends with Mrs. Etaris ...”

  Mr. Dart sighed. “My brother’s not as snobby as some, but he’ll not be over-pleased with me taking lessons from her. Dominus Gleason at least was a professor of magic at Fiella-by-the-Sea before the Fall.”

  “Didn’t Sir Hamish say the Marchioness was a witch?” Hal asked. “Perhaps she’ll give you lessons—”

  “What, if I can persuade her I’m actually her grandson?”

  There was a pause. I grimaced. “And so we come back to the dragon’s riddle ...”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I have an Idea

  FRIDAY NIGHT HAL AND I celebrated a more-or-less clean flat and the fact that I had been paid for my first fortnight of work. I bought us a bottle of wine from the Ragnor Arms. It wasn’t as good as the wine the Darts’ butler had served us, but then again, as Hal said, Mr. Brock probably wasn’t filling their cellars from the hotel’s offering.

  “I wasn’t sure where to go, actually,” I admitted, topping up our mismatched wine glasses. These were courtesy of the young son of some member of the Embroidery Circle, who’d shown up earlier with a box of miscellaneous kitchen supplies and a bashful explanation that his mum, whoever she was, thought we might appreciate them. Which we did. I resolved to ask Mrs. Etaris who it was so I could write to thank her.

  Hal ate one of the biscuits he had made that afternoon. “I am still pondering. This week has been one new experience after another for me. Who knew bed linens were so amazingly expensive?”

  “I’m afraid my budget is rather tighter than your housekeeper’s. Mind you, she’d be buying several dozen more than we needed.”

  “I don’t think she needs to buy them very often. We’ve all sorts of antique linens and things. Wool blankets ... so many wool blankets. The old duke—my father, that is—was forever sending off for woollens from various places so he could use them in his experiments.”

  I cut some cheese, ate one of the biscuits. Said tentatively, “Do you remember your father well?”

  “Not really. He was ... aristocratic, I guess you could say, in the old style. Felt children belonged in the nursery until they reached the age of reason. He was very grand and very proud—and I know my mother cared very deeply for him. He’d take Elly riding sometimes.” He smiled ruefully. “Perhaps he was better with women. Or perhaps he felt that as his heir I had to be treated differently, harder, because it would fall on me to make the hard decisions.”

  I didn’t know what to say to this. I was grateful that my mother had not felt the same way.

  Hal sighed. “I’ve always felt guilty that—when he died, I was sad, but also ... relieved. He was so hard, the old duke. I don’t think I ever called him anything but that. I remember swearing to Elly once that when I had children they would never, ever call me ‘your grace’.”

  There was a note in his voice that suggested he had said enough. I said, lightly enough to move on if he wished, “I think my grandmother also likes the old style.”

  Hal laughed, poured us more wine. “I think you’re entirely correct. But oddly my grandfather, my mother’s father, was nothing like that. He delighted in all our pet names for him. He taught me so much.”

  “You miss him,” I ventured.

  “Yes. Did you know your other relations?”

  “Not my father’s parents. They’d died when I was young. I always liked my uncle Sir Rinald. He died in a hunting accident just after—between the letters from Loe.”

  “The false one first, then the truth, right?”

  I swallowed. I could see Hal was done talking about his family. “Yes. I’ve always—it was so awful that Uncle Rinald died thinking my father was branded a traitor.”

  “He believed it?”

  “Even the accusation was ...”

  “Of course. An insupportable disgrace.”

  I traced a spill of crumbs and wine. “No. No, he didn’t think it was true, but all we had was that official letter.”

  “I have been thinking about that,” said Hal. “I hope my great-uncle does show up here soon—he will know the people involved, how such a mistake could have been made. Your father was famous, Jemis. He should never have been confused with someone else—unless someone did so deliberately.”

  “Deliberately? As in, someone deliberately lied to us?”

  “Perhaps your father had enemies in the army ... people do. And someone was the traitor of Loe, after all. It might not have been ‘Jakory Greenwing’ at all.”

  I felt very tired. “It’s so strange to think of such deliberate wickedness. You don’t expect people to be wicked on purpose, somehow. By accident or mischance, yes, but on purpose?” I sighed. “I’ve spent all summer trying to excuse Violet ...”

  “Did she give you any excuses when you saw her?”

  “No. She said some things were inexcusable, and she was sorry.”

  I stopped there, hearing a note of regret, pain, sorrow in my voice. I had spent the summer trying to find a reason to forgive Violet; not Lark.

  Hal said, “Mrs. Buchance sent your things over, by the way, this afternoon. I put them in your room, though I was wondering if you wanted to put the crock out on display? It’s so beautiful. The Heart of Glory, too.”

  I was glad for the change of subject. “I’d be a little worried about thieves.”

  “Tchah! There’s magic for that.”

  “Really? And you know it?”

  “I do have a dukedom to protect, you know.”

  I smiled, forced myself upright; felt immediately better. Hal came with me to my room, where I found the chests of my inheritance, a box of clothes and small items, an
d another box of books and paperwork. “Not much of a life,” I murmured, pulling out the crock and pectoral.

  “The books will come in time, and other things, too. You’ll make a good lawyer, I think.”

  “Prone to arguments as I am?” My eye fell on the topmost letter, the one from Morrowlea awarding me first place. A niggling doubt crystallized. I said, “I am going to write them. Dominus Nidry—the faculty.”

  “Ask them to sponsor you to Inveragory?”

  “That, and to say I’m—I wasn’t exactly disinterested, this spring. I wish I were the sort of person who could stand up against—against that—for the pure love of truth, but I’m not.” I looked at the Heart of Glory peeking out of its flannel wrapping. “I’m not. I thought Violet was, but she ...”

  “There will be another time,” said Hal, taking the pectoral from me. “And next time, like last time, you will hold the Sun. Do you think your father was unafraid? My great-uncle was. But he still stood there as long as it took.”

  We went back out to the parlour, where I wrote my letter in many drafts and Hal fussed about with the Heart of Glory, until Mr. Dart arrived—“It being Friday night,” he said cheerfully—with a rather better bottle of wine and the news that the Honourable Rag had told everyone it was my dragon to deal with.

  “Oh, joy,” I said, and got up to move the honey crock from the corner table where Hal had set it to the mantelpiece, where my mother had always kept it.

  “The wine? You’re welcome. Oh, look at the pattern in the candlelight. I hadn’t seen it before.”

  I glanced back at the crock. The candle at the end of the mantle was guttering low, causing the bas-relief to stand out sharply. I smiled.

  “My mother used to tell me stories about the pattern ...” I turned the crock so that the curving lines showed themselves a tree, heart-shaped leaves now clearly visible. “There are two bees somewhere, a white one and a green one. We used to have a little game about finding them. My mother used to say that they were racing each other to collect the nectar, like the moon and the sun, like the seasons of the year.”