by A. M. Manay
“I’m not a troublemaker, sir. It’s just that nobody wants me for a maid-in-waiting, on account of, well, you can see why,” Shiloh replied, holding up her hook. “I love books. I’ll be very careful; I promise.”
The man pulled a pair of spectacles from the pocket of his brown clerical robes and squinted at her. “Oh. Well, that’s different, then. You must be Edmun’s pet project. He wrote to me, made me do some research for him about your condition.”
“He did? Did you find out anything helpful?” she asked, eager and surprised. Edmun had never mentioned writing to the royal librarian.
“Mostly that you probably ought to be dead by now,” he replied crabbily. “I’m Brother Mikel. I’ll be glad of some help from someone who isn’t a total idiot.”
“Pleased to meet you, Master,” Shiloh replied. “I shall endeavor not to disappoint.”
“Hrmph.”
Shiloh passed a few pleasant enough hours shelving books until Brother Mikel called her back into his office. She took the opportunity to ask, “Master, where is everyone? Why is it so empty in here?”
“Because no one these days has any appreciation for scholarship,” he grumbled. “And the few that do are afraid of drawing notice,” he added darkly.
Shiloh shivered. That’s a bit ominous.
“I need you to deliver this,” he told her, pointing his chin toward a small basket full of books. “Bring back the ones she is done with. Don’t dawdle.”
“Where do I bring it?” Shiloh asked. She glanced at the spines. They were books of poetry and plays, pleasant diversions for some noblewoman, surely.
“The Dark Tower,” Mikel clarified.
Shiloh’s head snapped up. “I beg your pardon?”
“They’re for the Dowager Duchess, as we’re supposed to call her, last I heard. Next week, only the Gods know what her title will be,” he muttered.
“The guards will let me in?”
“Aye. They haven’t forbidden the wretch her books. Yet. They’ll search them, looking for secret letters and suchlike. They’ll search again on your way out,” the librarian warned. “Don’t let her give you anything, or the Hatchet will have your guts for garters.”
“Yes, Brother Mikel,” she obediently replied, then took the basket in hand.
“Go on, then,” he commanded, shooing her out the door.
Shiloh’s anxiety increased the closer she got to the black doors that led into the Dark Tower. She’d heard the story of its name. Everyone had. It was said to be haunted, though Shiloh did not believe in ghosts.
Centuries before, a crown prince named Donvan had plotted against his mad father, King Rold. Rold had then locked his son in the tower. When his mother, the queen, had protested, her husband had locked her in with their offspring. Facing execution for treason, the innocent queen had thrown herself out of a window, perishing on the jagged rocks below. Moved by her fate, the king’s guards had then tossed their sovereign, her husband, out of the same window. Donvan, upon taking the throne, had expressed his grief by having all of the windows of the tower bricked up. The tower had stood mostly empty ever since, not even used for a prison.
It was in this Gods-awful place that Mirin had chosen to make her stand.
Shiloh looked up into the faces of the guards who stood at the doors, wands at the ready. She wondered how a halfblood wound up a royal guard rather than a priest or a barrister. She didn’t imagine they were selected for their brains. As Mikel had predicted, they leafed through the books, carefully looking for any sign of tampering or unauthorized correspondence. They eyed her person as well, but she supposed that they had no desire to touch a hexborn abomination, as they waved her straight through.
“Where do I go?” she asked when one of them opened the door to allow her to pass.
“To the top of the stairs,” he grinned. “Can’t miss them. If the ghosts don’t get you first.”
The door thudded shut behind her, plunging her into what seemed, at first, to be utter darkness. Once her eyes had adjusted, she saw that there was plenty of light to navigate by. Dust danced in the sunshine that managed to sneak through the many gaps in the haphazard masonry covering the windows, and she could make out flickering torchlight just around the turn of the spiral staircase.
Shiloh took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and began the climb. Soon she heard the sounds of soft conversation, and a dozen steps later, she found herself at the door to Mirin’s self-imposed prison. She knocked, and all talk ceased. A girl opened the door warily and relaxed visibly at the sight of Shiloh.
“It’s just a girl, Your Grace,” she called over her shoulder. “With the books.”
“Very well,” replied a lightly accented voice. “Let her in.”
Shiloh entered and dropped into a curtsey before straightening to take in the scene. If it weren’t for the bricked-over windows, it could have been any slightly down-on-her-luck noblewoman’s parlor.
The former queen sat in an armchair, embroidery in her lap, cloth of state hanging defiantly above her head. A well-dressed young girl sat beside her; Shiloh assumed her to be the former princess Esta. The girl who had answered the door returned to her place on a bench by the wall. Shiloh wondered how she had wound up serving the former queen rather than the present one. The other two women were much older, closer to Mirin’s own age. Shiloh guessed they had been her ladies-in-waiting for many years and had refused to turn their coats upon their old friend’s ouster.
Shiloh approached and held out the basket. “Where shall I put these, Your Grace?” she asked, stepping into the light.
Startled cries rang out as the ladies noticed her pink hair. Shiloh closed her eyes and waited for them to finish overreacting.
“Such an insult,” a white-haired lady gasped, “to send them to you with someone Unclean!”
Shiloh forced her eyes open. “It is my understanding that I am no longer Unclean in the eyes of the church, and if an insult was intended, I was not party to it,” she replied evenly. “And, quite frankly, Brother Mikel doesn’t seem the type, my lady.”
Mirin’s thin lips twitched. No shock was evident in her expression. “Indeed not. Put them on the table, and take the rest back. I am done with them.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Wait!” Mirin ordered. “I want a look at you.”
Shiloh stiffened. She had to bite her tongue to stop an angry reply. I’m not some Gods-damned circus freak for you to gawk at. But she knew there was nothing for it. Warily, she stepped into the light of the table lamp next to the former queen. She kept her gaze averted from the woman’s face, assuming that she would see fascinated disgust written there.
“How in the world did he manage to keep you alive?” Mirin asked in wonderment.
Shiloh’s eyes darted back to her face in surprise, but before she could seek an explanation for Mirin’s words, there came another knock on the door.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” a familiar voice called from the other side. “I would have a word, if you please. I bear a message from our king.”
The women startled like woodland creatures; Mirin suddenly looked as though she'd been sucking lemons. She waved her hand, and the girl who had opened the door for Shiloh rose to attend to it again.
If Hatch was surprised to find Shiloh in Mirin’s company, he gave no sign of it.
“Girl, you may take the books now,” Mirin declared. Shiloh moved quickly to obey and made her escape back to a world where the sun still shone.
***
“Leave us,” Mirin ordered, and her ladies and maids obeyed, disappearing into the next room. Esta ventured a wary look back at her mother before closing the door firmly behind her.
Silas remained standing, as Mirin had not given him leave to sit. She examined him with eyes so sharp that Silas was surprised they didn't draw blood.
“She wants Lady Esta by Solstice,” Hatch said simply. “She wants your daughter in her child
’s household after he is dedicated.”
“And if we refuse?” Mirin asked icily.
“I'm sure Queen Zina will think of some way to retaliate,” Silas replied. “I have attempted to dissuade her from this course, but she will not be deterred.”
A bitter laugh forced its way out of her mouth. “I doubt you tried very hard. Pettiness does not become a queen. She will learn that lesson the hard way when my husband grows tired of her.”
“That may well be,” Hatch blandly replied. “The nursery will be at Fountain Bluff, as is customary. If you agree to part with your daughter, the king is prepared to offer you the nearby manor at Three Trees for your residence. It is but a few miles distant, a lovely house, as you may remember. You could visit regularly with Lady Esta, and your accommodations would be much more comfortable. This tower will be cold and wet come winter. Neither you nor your daughter will benefit from those conditions.”
Mirin made no effort to hide her hatred of her husband’s errand boy. “You do have a pretty way of making your threats, Master Hatch. You tell your alleged queen that she will have to drag us out of here by our heels,” she declared, regally drawing herself up to her full, if modest, height, “and thus be revealed for what she is. I will not allow my weakness of health to interfere with my sacred duty to protect my husband’s immortal soul and the very kingdom itself from that black-hearted harpy.”
Hatch bowed. “I shall so inform his grace.”
She waved a hand of dismissal.
As he opened the door, she stopped him with a question. “What is her element?”
Without turning around, he replied. “Steel, Your Grace.”
He could hear Mirin cackling until he was halfway down the stairs.
Well, at least she still has her sense of humor.
Chapter 7
What Are You Playing At?
Shiloh knelt down next to the crater. It was a cold day, but the ground still steamed in the place where the Feralfolk had died, and would do so for another month or more. She let her cloak fall to the ground.
The bodies had finally been removed, what little had remained of the men who had killed her father a week earlier. She had just finished burying him; Edmun’s chants still rang in her ears. Her cheeks were hollow, her skin gray. Every bone ached. She suspected that when the sun finished setting, she would be visited by another one of her attacks, but she was too grief-stricken to care.
The ground was black as tar, crusted over as if she had somehow killed the earth itself. She had no idea how she’d done it. Her rage had found its escape before she’d even realized it.
“What are you doing here, child?” Edmun asked.
Shiloh looked over her shoulder to find her teacher, the only family she had remaining. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I wish I . . . I wish I could fix it. Make the field green again. Make . . . everything . . .”
“There’s no undoing what’s been done,” he replied gently. “And there’s no point in torturing yourself. You’re not the first to have done such a thing. Great expanses of land looked just like this at the end of the war, battlefields as dead as the men who’d bled there. They still look like this. There’s a reason we call those places the Deadlands. Nothing will grow here again, poppet.” He sounded terribly tired.
“There has to be a way,” she argued weakly.
“Well, if there is, you will be the one to find it. But not tonight.”
“I know. I feel like I’m going to be ill after dark,” she confessed.
“I rather suspected as much. You’re already bleeding through your tunic,” he confirmed. She wore the traditional white of mourning, which did little to hide the curse mark blooming on her back. “Looks like maybe Kirshan’s Hex.”
“Gods damn it,” she swore, a sob boiling up in her throat. “Again?”
“Come on, poppet. Let’s walk to my house before your legs fail you. I can’t carry you these days, light though you may be,” Edmun urged, helping her to her feet.
They leaned on each other as they made their way back across the village. Shiloh could feel his frailty through his cloak.
Soon, I will be all alone, she told herself. Too soon.
***
Penn and Shiloh sat on a bench in a courtyard, both reading a dense and lengthy article on Red Fever. A short distance away, a group of boys roughhoused. Wands in hand, they appeared to be making one another’s shoes turn into various household objects. The lads howled with laughter as someone danced on a pair of chamber pots. Daved approached the group, but they ignored him utterly. He turned and walked away with his hands in his pockets.
“Who are those boys?” Shiloh asked Penn.
“The fair-haired one, the one walking away, is Lord Daved Jennin, whose father is the Earl of Redwood, Lord of the Wood.” Penn’s mouth turned down.
“Right. His lord father is in trouble or something?” Shiloh replied. “I see him in the dining hall.”
Penn nodded sadly. “I fear Lord Daved’ll be in the High Tower soon enough. The redhead is Jaym, the king’s bastard, just named Baron of Wheatley, so he’s a lord, now.” At Shiloh’s look of confusion, Penn further explained. “His grace chose to give him a title, though he’s a bastard. The king is most fond of him. His late mother was an earl’s daughter, the king’s favorite mistress. He’s a very sweet boy, cheerful, but not terribly good at his schoolwork.”
As if to emphasize Penn’s point, Jaym picked that precise moment to accidentally set his own hair alight. Another boy laughed uproariously and swatted out the flames.
“And his friend?” Shiloh asked.
“Jasin Gray, Earl of Kepler, Lord of the Fist. He is a favorite of the king. His uncle is helping him manage his lands until he finishes his studies and gets married. The one with the widow’s peak is Gregoh. His father is Estan nobility, currently serving here as ambassador. He’s supposed to marry Lady Hana’s baby sister, or so they say. Hana and her sister are great favorites of Queen Zina, of course.” Penn’s jaw tensed. Someone is not too find of the queen, Shiloh thought. Or else the queen is not too fond of her.
“And what about you? Whom will you marry?” Shiloh asked.
“Oh, I’m nobody. Just a ‘miss.’ My uncle is the Duke of Rockmore, Lord of the Gate. My late father was his youngest brother. I’m just the poor relation of an important man,” Penn replied with a self-deprecating smile. “And my mother, before her passing, was Dowager Duchess Mirin’s closest friend, so it’ll take a miracle for me to make a decent marriage.”
“At least I don’t have to worry about that,” Shiloh replied, half smiling. “I won’t be making any marriage at all.” She thought a moment. “Why do we call her the Dowager Duchess? I thought she was a princess of Gerne before she married King Rischar. So, if she’s not a queen anymore, isn’t she still a princess?”
“Evidently, she was briefly engaged to the late Grand Duke Reinhold, ruler of Estany, back when she was a child. The Patriarch annulled the contract to allow her match with our king, but when King Rischar divorced Mirin, he asserted that the Patriarch lacked the authority to do so, rendering his marriage with Mirin void and the former princess Esta illegitimate. And making Mirin the dead Grand Duke’s wife after all, though they never lived together.”
“Thus ‘Dowager Duchess Mirin’ and ‘Lady Esta Courtborn,’ and the Patriarch’s current exile in Gerne?”
“Just so,” Penn confirmed.
“This place is maddening,” Shiloh complained.
Penn laughed. “You don’t know the half of it!”
***
On her third day at Greenhill Palace, Shiloh came upon the gardens.
“Oh,” she breathed after a boy in livery pulled open the heavy door. At the bottom of the stairs, golden dragons guarded the oasis in the midst of the bustling court.
“Miss?” the boy asked impatiently, shaking her out of her reverie.
“Oh, so sorry!”
Shil
oh stepped through, her silk slippers crunching the white stones beneath her feet. A wide path stretched out before her, leading to an impressive arched stairway that rose on either side of an enormous fountain. Smaller paths branched off this way and that, leading she knew not where. At the bottom of the stairs a wide lawn stretched down the verdant hill that gave the palace its name. Several terraces had been carved out of the slope. Shiloh could see ladies-in-waiting playing some sort of game on one of them.
Uninterested in their unfamiliar sport, Shiloh chose a path at random. Flower beds on either side gave up their soothing aromas. As Shiloh only knew the wildflowers of the mountains, their beauty and fragrance were a revelation. Perfectly trimmed hedges divided the garden into sections. She spotted several of the gardeners going about their labors.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Shiloh turned around with a start to find the court jester, Verjell. His garb was a bit more subdued by daylight than it was each night at supper. Shiloh supposed there wasn’t as much call for his antics in the middle of the afternoon.
“Very,” she replied. “How are you, sir?”
Verjell smiled. “Well. And you, Miss Shiloh? Are you starting to get your bearings?
Shiloh returned the smile. “Starting to. This place is enormous, and so full of people. I think there are more people on these grounds than there were in my whole village.”
“Well, you seem to have made a good first impression on your tutor. Jonn is abuzz about your gifts,” Verjell confided, eyebrows wiggling.
“Really? He told you that?” Shiloh couldn’t help being pleased to hear it.
“You might be surprised how much people will confide in a fool,” he replied. “A jester is better than a priest for confession.”
“Almost as good as a bartender?” she asked, winking.
Verjell winked back. “You are a clever girl, aren’t you?”
Before she could respond, a bird of prey dove from the sky. Verjell leapt away, but Shiloh threw her arms out and laughed. “Honey!” she cried as the falcon landed on her shoulder.