by Callie Bates
I wonder, as I’ve wondered so often before, if it was the Butcher who turned in some of my father’s followers after that failed rebellion, and then oversaw their execution. If it was he who barred the gates on the village of Marose and let the townspeople burn to death for chanting the Old Pretender’s name. I know these stories because Loyce has told them to me with glee for years. “Just think of those Caerisians dead like cattle in their highland village. Think of what it must have been like, to receive the justice they deserved.”
Antoine did what he had to do, of course. A monarch must protect his people. But the stories have always made me a little sick. How easily, Loyce likes to remind me, it could have been me.
We begin to pace back toward the main building. The Butcher says nothing, only glances occasionally at me, as if waiting for me to speak. I plaster my face into the most neutral expression I can muster while my hovering hand starts to shake and sweat. He’s trying to force me through silence into babbling, into making conversation that he can exploit. Into confessing to attempted murder? Has he seen Denis or Loyce? What does he know?
My throat is far too tight to babble the way he wants me to. Finally, he’s the one who speaks.
“Fine weather,” he says. “For sailing.”
What? “Is it?”
“Indeed. Very fine. Fine for bringing a prince from across the sea.”
I almost stop short. I force myself to walk. “I don’t know what you mean, Lord Gilbert.”
My voice trembles.
“I think you do, Lady Elanna,” he counters in the most polite manner. “I think you know very well of what—and whom—I speak.”
I wet my lips. I do. The rumors have been gathering, whispered conversations the courtiers think no one else can hear. “I haven’t spoken to my father since I was a child. I don’t know him, and I don’t hold with his views. I don’t want to bring the Old Pretender’s son from Ida and launch a rebellion against the crown.”
The Butcher’s mouth tucks in, but I can’t tell whether that means he’s satisfied. “Did you not know the so-called prince?”
“No,” I say, more violently than I meant to. “He didn’t come to Caeris when the Old Pretender tried to claim the throne. He was only a child.”
Like me.
“But surely they spoke to you of him. Fionnlach Dromahair. Your father would have wished you to marry him. He fancies himself the kingmaker; he would have made his daughter queen.”
“I don’t know that,” I say flatly. “We were children. They didn’t speak to us of marriage.”
A memory flies upon me: my father saying, How would you like to marry a prince, Elly?
“Now Fionnlach Dromahair is a man,” the Butcher murmurs. “Eager to prove his worth. And you are…of marriageable age. Useful.”
We have reached the atrium leading back into the newer part of the palace, with its bright windows and pastel-blue ceilings. The Butcher slows us in the arched doorway. I press my lips together. I turn to face him.
“You know as well as I do that my father doesn’t want me back, Lord Gilbert. You were there the night they took me.”
He studies me for a long moment, and I see him the way I saw him as a child, in the garden behind my parents’ townhouse in Laon, in his black coat and low hat. He did not appear frightening then.
I was a child. I knew nothing.
“You know,” I continue, my throat dry, “that some things cannot be forgiven.”
He tilts his head. Then he nods and pats my hand in an almost paternal fashion; it’s strange to think of it, but he does have daughters of his own. “Very well, Lady Elanna. I will inform the queen of your statements. Undoubtedly she will be interested. But I do not know if she will believe it. The mark of Caeris is all over this affair.”
With a short bow, he turns to go. Then he pauses. “The king demanded a great deal from you, I know—from all of us. But allegiance is paramount. We must all sacrifice things we would rather not, sometimes.”
—
THERE’S ONLY ONE thing I can do, while I wait for Denis Falconier and the Butcher to frame me for murder. I make my way to the greenhouse. I’ll destroy all the evidence that Guerin and I ever studied that amanita.
My mind is tight with fear, but I walk brisk and stiff-backed across the sunny garden. No one approaches to stop me.
I don’t know what scares me more: my predicament or Lord Gilbert’s words. The Butcher of Novarre said allegiance is paramount, that we must make sacrifices. We have never before spoken of the secret we share, not once in all the years I’ve known him, and yet he speaks as if he understands what I gave up. And now he thinks I must make another sacrifice—he thinks I’m still in contact with my father. How? I wouldn’t know how to contact Ruadan Valtai even if I wanted to!
It doesn’t matter. The Butcher thinks I’m guilty of something. And if he believes I’m a traitor, then I will be branded one, whether it’s the truth or not. I suppose he thinks he’s being generous, giving me the opportunity to make my own confession instead of having it tortured out of me.
The old minister of finance, the one who held the post before Master Madoc, was accused of embezzling hundreds of pounds from the royal coffers. Victoire told me that he refused to confess; it was the Butcher who made him speak, not only torturing the man but threatening his wife and children. Eventually the minister confessed, though many people still believed he was innocent. But the Butcher had decided he was guilty, and that was the end of the matter.
The greenhouse still sits empty. There’s no sign that anyone has rifled through our drawings—yet—but I pull down the big sketchbook and flip through it until I find the drawings I made of the Amanita virosa. I stare at the precise lines of the gills, the fringed collar around the stalk, the white crayon shaded with gray and pale purple.
I clench my teeth together. Then I crumple the parchment in my hand and stuff it into the brazier.
If they question me, I’ll say I don’t even know what Amanita virosa is, though I was only studying the plant. I can’t let the Butcher have a scrap of evidence against me.
But the brazier, which we keep to heat tea, wasn’t lit this morning and the parchment doesn’t catch. I crouch, fumbling with the flint and tinderbox until flames flare over the parchment and it begins to curl and blacken, just the way a fungus does at the end of its life. My heart seems to be curling and tightening along with it.
“What are you doing?”
I drop the tinderbox. It clatters on the flagstones. There’s a man in the greenhouse behind me. He’s wearing a blue silk coat, cut back to show off his figure, and matching tailored knee-breeches with silver trim on the cuffs. Short black hair, in what they call the workman’s fashion. Olive skin. Light eyes. It’s the man from the stone circle. My heart begins to pound, and at the same time a treacherous flush burns up from the pit of my stomach. In his fashionable clothes, with his thick soft hair, he looks so dashing. I have to remind myself that he is also dangerous.
“I’ve never seen anyone garden with a fire.” He picks out the words carefully, his accent thickening. He gestures toward the smoldering wreckage of my drawing, but he doesn’t take his gaze from my face. The way he looks at me makes my blood pump hot, then cold. Here he is in his beautiful clothes, and I’m still dressed like a boy. What does he see in me to possibly intrigue him so?
I stand. My knees creak. I have nothing to defend myself with. If he attacks me, if he threatens me, I’ll have to run.
“You forgot this.” He reaches into a pocket and produces the dagger I left lying between the stones this morning.
I look from it to his face. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Don’t you want it?” He means the dagger, which he holds out again.
His bright curiosity, his foreignness, infuriates me. It’s as if nothing matters to him—my life, the fear choking my chest. I snatch the dagger from his hand. It slips from my grasp and ricochets off the side of the brazier, flying a
way under the potting table. At least it’s hidden there.
“Leave me alone,” I say, my voice cracking on the last word. Though if he knows about my magic, I mustn’t antagonize him. I should placate him. But this only makes me angrier. “I don’t know about Ida, but in Eren it’s rude to startle someone when they’re—when they’re—”
“Destroying evidence?” A dimple appears beside the left corner of his mouth when he grins. As if it’s a great joke: my life at risk. But despite my own better judgment and the accusations he’s just made, I almost trust the knowingness in his eyes. “It will seem more suspicious if they find you.”
Cold twinges through me. He knows who I am. Did he see the drawing? Has he been in here that long? He must know what Amanita virosa is. The talk will be all over the palace.
Is he trying to help? Or hinder?
Did the Butcher send him?
The humiliating sting of tears threatens my eyes. I will not cry in front of this stranger with his daring grin and his too-curious gaze. “Guerin didn’t do it. He has no reason to assassinate the king. And all the reason in the world not to—his family, his position, his career.”
The young man’s gaze doesn’t waver. “And you?”
I stare at him, my mouth open. My heartbeat jumps in an uneasy rhythm. “Me?”
“What have you to gain from killing the king?”
All the warmth drains out of me. “Nothing,” I whisper. I have everything to lose. Antoine wants a decent life for me, and he’s shown me true generosity: given me a royal education, allowed me to study botany and hold salons. Loyce, on the other hand, has always accused Antoine of being too kind to me—kinder than he ever was to her. She’d delight in seeing me miserable.
I have nothing to gain from killing Antoine Eyrlai.
Unless I wanted revenge. Because Denis and the Butcher think I’ve been writing secret letters to my parents—plotting another revolution to bring back “the king from across the sea,” like the revolt my father failed to win for the Old Pretender fourteen years ago.
“Nothing,” I say fiercely. I’m not sure why it’s important for this man to believe me, but I want him to—desperately. I want someone to hear me. “He may have held a pistol to my head, but I know it was a political maneuver. I’m not angry.”
Now the young man seems surprised. “A pistol?”
“I haven’t spoken to my parents since I was a child.” It strikes me that this is no barrier—that my fool of a father could take it into his head, at last, that I need rescuing. Maybe he did arrange for the poison. Maybe he’s decided it’s time to make another bid for Caeris’s independence and bring the Old Pretender back from across the sea in a revolt that will only make the poor of Caeris poorer and let the Butcher slaughter more deluded fools. I say hastily, “But I have no interest in Caeris. I want to go to Ida and study at the Kepeios Basiliskos.”
He blinks, again surprised. “Ida? I could arrange that for you.” He raises an eyebrow. “It’s certainly not safe for you to stay here, in any case.”
It’s my turn to be surprised. “What do you mean?”
“Studying at the gardens—I could arrange this for you.”
I’m suspicious. “With Markarades? The imperial botanist?”
“Yes.” His voice is firm, unhesitating.
I stare. “Who are you? And why should I believe you?”
He shrugs and his lips twitch into another grin. It’s a joke to him, all of this. He’s playing me, and the pathetic thing is how desperately I want to believe him. “I know Markarades. I could write you a letter. Get you an interview.”
I suppose it stands to reason that someone who recognizes Amanita virosa might know the royal botanist in Ida.
Maybe.
“But,” he says, and I realize I’ve tensed in anticipation of this, “I must ask you some questions first. In exchange for the help, yes? I want to know about those stones.”
No. Not a bargain. Not at all.
“I know nothing about them.”
He frowns. “But I saw you—”
A tramping outside the door cuts him off; we both freeze. I’m holding my breath. The young man watches the door, his frown erasing into a half smile, as if we have amused him once again. “They were searching the palace when I arrived. Demanded my papers.”
“The royal guard?”
He shrugs. Again. “I thought we’d have more time, but you must go. The king is dead.”
I’m going to be sick. “Antoine died? He’s dead? How do you know?”
“Everyone was talking about it.” He makes a soft noise between a laugh and a snort: a warm, generous sound. “They had opened the doors for the viewing. I didn’t look. I’ve seen enough corpses.”
A white light seems to explode in my head. I bolt across the greenhouse to the back door by the yew trees. My heartbeat pounds through my whole body. I can’t go out: I’ll be too obvious. The sun is bright overhead; I will be seen, if anyone’s looking. But I have to run. I grab the latch just as the first guard comes in.
I can’t breathe. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I look so guilty.
But the man’s eyes pass right over me and come to rest on the young man. “Have you seen Lady Elanna?”
My new friend blinks, polite but suddenly quite bored. “Who?”
“Lady Elanna Valtai, of Caeris. She frequents this place.”
Another guard comes in behind the first, his eyes scanning the room. Again, he doesn’t see me.
I am not doing this. I don’t have this sort of power. It’s his, not mine. My heart leaps with a terrible hope, though I should be afraid. A sorcerer—a sorcerer fearless enough to hide himself in Ida—is a dangerous thing. I don’t know what he might do.
“I don’t know her,” says the Idaean man. “I only got in yesterday.”
The guards are remarkably polite. “If you don’t mind, Lord Jahan, we’ll take a look around.”
As they put their backs to him, he looks right at me and points at the glass wall. Motions me to go through it.
Does he mean to go straight through the glass?
Goose pimples prick my skin. Do I trust this magic? Do I trust him? I shouldn’t trust him. I shouldn’t trust his smile. I shouldn’t trust his name—Jahan is not an Idaean name, yet he presents himself as Idaean. But I take a step. Another. I stretch out my hand: My fingers slide through the glass as if it’s no more substantial than air. The hairs stand up all over my body as I step through into the garden. I glance back: The glass looks solid. A guard stands on the other side, squinting straight at me.
I break into a run. Despite the glaring sunlight, he doesn’t see me; he’d be out here if he did. All the same I race like mad for the stairs that go up to my rooms, my back twitching in anticipation of a shot.
I should have known, if Denis and Loyce would put the blame on anyone, they would choose me.
CHAPTER THREE
The invisibility—or whatever it is—must have worn off by the time I reach my bedroom door, because Hensey is there, pulling me inside. I’m shaking, but my old nurse looks as steady as any warrior going into battle. She propels me into the bedroom and shuts the inner door. We have the Paladisans to thank for these rooms situated within rooms, and right now I’m grateful for it—grateful for any space between Loyce’s guards and me.
He did it. Denis accused me of murder.
I have to get out of here.
Hensey thrusts a pistol and a powder flask into my hands. Where did she get a pistol? It’s unexpectedly heavy, the stock stamped with intricate knot work: a nobleman’s weapon. “You’ll need this. Go to the Hill of the Imperishable. A man’s waiting for you there. He’ll take you to Ganz, and Ganz will see you back to your father.”
“My father?” I say stupidly as a leather coin purse follows the pistol into my grasp. “The Count of Ganz?”
My father is a suspected traitor, and everyone has heard about the Count of Ganz. He’s an eccentric, a monster whom they say takes village girls
and boys into his employ and makes them do unspeakable things. The children never return to their families. Then there are the experiments he’s supposed to conduct on animals in windowless rooms beneath his house…
The last time he came to court, though, he seemed more absurd than monstrous. He had an Agran monkey on a jeweled leash. It got away from him, jumped on Loyce, snatched all the outsized silk flowers from her hair and ate them. The muscles in my throat ached with the effort not to laugh.
How on earth will he help me? Legions of monkeys?
“Yes,” Hensey says with impatience, “and if the man isn’t at the circle, get yourself directly to Ganz. That’s what the money’s for. Here’s a butter pastry and cheese. I’ve filled your flask with good water. You need to put on a different hat.”
The food and the flask have been shoved into an embroidered floral satchel, which Hensey now puts in my hands. She marches to the wardrobe, spilling out a pile of hats, all impractical, most festooned with ribbons and artificial flowers.
My mind is reeling. Hensey—solid, dependable Hensey—has been working for my father all these years?
She throws a floppy knit hat at me. “Wear that.” Grunting, she gets to her feet, reaching into her pocket. “Oh, and this. You’ll need it to identify yourself should any trouble befall you.”
It’s a ring, large and silver, inset with a plain stone that twists over. The reverse shows a tree wrapped in a circle, its exposed roots twisting into the knot work around it.
The knotted golden pine. The symbol of the Valtais, the stewards of the land. The kingmakers. The symbol of my father.
I hastily turn the ring so that only the plain side shows. It’s big, so I shove it onto my middle finger.
Hensey allows a slight smile. “I’ve been carrying that around for a good long while.”
“You mean—you work for my father? But you’re Ereni. You’re from Jardin de la Mer.”
She looks at me. “It wasn’t only Caerisians who fought for Euan Dromahair, who wanted to see him crowned king instead of Antoine Eyrlai. I followed your father’s cause. I believed his claims that a greater unity with Paladis would bring us more prosperity, and that the people have the right to choose their own kings.”