The Queen's Secret

by Jessica Day George

  “I was just sayin’ as I’ve had ring pox, and en’t gonna get the Dag,” the boy said, with a huge half-chewed mouthful of bread. “So there’s no reason t’ sit out here.” He shrugged again and took another bite. “But if ye insist I do, I guess I do.”

  Hewett’s brows pulled together.

  “Are you saying,” he asked carefully, “that because you’ve had ring pox you can’t get the Dag?”

  “That’s right,” the boy said back, dust-streaked face cheerful as he polished off the bread and discovered a large green apple in the basket.

  “Who told you that?”

  “My granddad. He’s a doctor.” The boy’s cheerful face clouded. “He’s awful sick now, can I bring him medicine?”

  Other people were starting to wander over to observe this strange conference on the front drive. Dr. Rosemary came out of nowhere, seemingly, and tapped Anthea’s shoulder. Anthea jumped about a foot in the air.

  “Did that boy say something about ring pox?” Dr. Rosemary asked when Anthea hit the ground. “Is that making the rounds as well?”

  “I’ve had ring pox,” Anthea said.

  “I shouldn’t worry about it, then, you only get it once,” Dr. Rosemary said brusquely. “Hewett, who supplies your needles?” She was studying a list as well.

  “Dr. Rosemary,” Hewett said in a strangled voice.

  “I’ve had ring pox,” Anthea repeated, louder. “Jilly’s had it, right?”

  “She did have it,” Dr. Hewett said, turning from studying the boy. “You and Jillian had it at the same time. I was still a rider then.” He grimaced. “But I remember you sneaking out to play with the foals even though you were both bright red with the fever rash.”

  “Oh, aye,” Caillin MacRennie said suddenly. “Coughed so hard she fell on her face in the mud.” He pointed to Anthea, who felt her cheeks turn pink. “I carried you both back into the house like sacks of misbehaving potatoes.”

  “And the horses are inoculated against it, aren’t they?” Anthea said.

  She had helped Dr. Hewett and Uncle Andrew inoculate the new foals in the spring. Inoculation was relatively new, but Dr. Hewett was a staunch supporter of it.

  “Wait, what did you all just say?” Dr. Rosemary looked up from her list.

  “The boy says his granddad—his grandfather, I mean—told him that he couldn’t get the Dag, since he’d already had ring pox.”

  Dr. Rosemary didn’t reply, and as the boy was busy with his apple, Anthea turned to look at her. The scientist was standing with her mouth open, one hand poised halfway to her throat. The scientist continued to stare over Anthea’s shoulder for a heartbeat or two, then she slowly focused on Anthea’s face. She reached out and touched Anthea’s chin, turning her face from side to side, examining Anthea with her sharp eyes.

  “You’ve had no symptoms of the Dag?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I had a mild case of ring pox,” Dr. Hewett said. “And practiced inoculation on myself in medical college as well.” He held out his arms to show that he had no symptoms of the Dag.

  “I need a list of all the members of the brigade who have had ring pox,” Dr. Rosemary said, intense. She looked around. “But none of the horses have gotten it?”

  “Ring pox?” Dr. Hewett said. “Or the Dag?”

  “I know they haven’t gotten the Dag,” Dr. Rosemary said irritably. “But what about ring pox? Do they get that?”

  “They could, but we inoculate them,” Hewett said.

  “I helped,” Anthea said. “With the foals. In the spring.”

  Both doctors turned to look at her. The boy had moved closer, and was standing beside Anthea, both of them staring at Hewett and Dr. Rosemary.

  Dr. Hewett looked at Dr. Rosemary. “Jacoby, the surgeon here before me, inoculated all the horses, and I’ve carried on. We’re on the second generation of horses who have been inoculated.”

  “We need to check the riders,” Dr. Rosemary said. They were nodding at each other, as though sharing a secret.

  “Finn’s had ring pox,” Anthea said. Everyone looked at her. “He has a scar on his wrist,” she mumbled, blushing. “So they’re related, ring pox and the Dag?”

  “My granddad says they are,” piped up the boy.

  Anthea started to shush him, but Dr. Rosemary held up a finger, and began lecturing.

  “Ring pox,” she said, “causes a widespread rash dotted with small blisters, and a hacking cough.” She held up another finger. “The Dag causes fever, rashy spots with occasional blisters, and a hacking cough.” She pointed to herself, then Anthea. “I’ve had ring pox, this girl has had ring pox, that boy has had ring pox, and none of us has gotten the Dag.”

  Dr. Hewett nodded again.

  “Go to the stable,” he instructed Anthea. “Ask any men you find. I’ll check with the ill.”

  Anthea ran to the stable, and surprised a group of riders coming out of it. She held out her arms to stop them in the door of the stable.

  “Have any of you had ring pox?”

  “What?” The leader of the group, a grizzled man Anthea didn’t know that well, just stared at her. “Ring pox?”

  “Yes, please! As children, perhaps?”

  “Oh, blimey! There’s another epidemic on?” One of the men spat in the dirt with disgust.

  “Just answer the question,” Anthea shouted, stamping her foot.

  The graying man said, “All right! I’ve had it!” He showed her a small round scar on his left forearm, like a tiny white dot in the otherwise tanned (and rather hairy) skin.

  “Me too!” The spitter raised a hand, and so did the other six men.

  “You’ve all had it?”

  “Yes, miss,” they chorused.

  “Thank you!”

  She pushed between their horses and went into the stable. Halfway down the first row of stalls, she found Keth sitting on an overturned bucket. She marched up to him, but couldn’t get his attention until she snapped her fingers in his face.

  “Have you had ring pox?”

  He raised his head to look up her. He looked awful: his eyes were red and swollen, his nose was streaming, and there were tears pouring down his cheeks even as he gaped at her.

  “What’s wrong?” She drew back in alarm.

  “My mum,” he said thickly. “She’s got it. The Dag. They won’t let me see her.”

  “Oh no.”

  Anthea adored Nurse Shannon, they all did. And Keth’s father had died a long while back; it was only he and his mother in their little cottage behind the Big House. Anthea put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

  “But we … there might be some hope,” she ventured.

  “What do you mean?” He blew his nose loudly.

  Anthea handed him her handkerchief for good measure. “We just … there’s a little boy …” She realized she didn’t want to give him false hope. “I wondered if you’ve had ring pox?”

  He looked confused, but he answered. “Yeah. I was eleven. Real bad. I’ve got pocks all over my back.”

  “Oh, good!”

  He stared at her through bleary eyes. “What does it mean?”

  Anthea stood up. “It means you can’t get the Dag. They think.”

  His eyes narrowed. “But I’ve had a cough for weeks.”

  “That cough,” Anthea said slowly. “The cough, but no rash, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Go, tell Dr. Rosemary. Right now!”

  “What about my mum? Will it help?” He jumped to his feet.

  “This is helping!” she called over her shoulder as she hurried out.

  After questioning all the riders she could find, Anthea met up with Caillin MacRennie and the young boy in the dining room. They also had Finn, Perkins, and Drs. Hewett and Rosemary, all in a high state of excitement. They compared notes, and it seemed that all the healthy members of the brigade had suffered ring pox as children. Uncle Andrew had experienced a very mild case as an adult, when Jilly and Anthea had go
tten it.

  “All this time, Keth has been carrying the Dag, but not been sick,” Dr. Hewett said, his brow clouded. “Why did we never take samples from him before?” He shook his head. “We’ve been fools, stumbling in the dark,” he muttered.

  “But now the light has come,” Dr. Rosemary said. Her eyes were wide and shining. “The two must be related, strains of the same master disease!” She seized Dr. Hewett by the shoulders. “Do you know what this means?”

  “What does it mean?” It was Anthea who asked, echoed by Jilly.

  “What does what mean, and why are you all running around?” Jilly clarified, coming all the way into the room. “And why am I the only one exercising the nine thousand horses out there?” She narrowed her eyes at Anthea.

  Dr. Rosemary looked at her with the first hint of a real smile that Anthea had ever seen the woman have. “It means, Miss Jillian, that you are immune to the Dag.”

  12

  YOUNG TIM AND SIR TIMOTHY

  “Why do you want to go to Bellair?”

  The boy from Parsiny, whose name was Tim, was full of questions. Most of them were about horses, which he was not at all afraid of but found completely fascinating. In point of fact, he was riding one, and doing better than Anthea had on her first day.

  “Because,” was her only reply to this latest question. “Sit up straight, shoulders back.”

  “Because en’t an answer,” the boy said.

  Anthea gave him a quelling look.

  Anthea was riding Florian and leading Goldenrod, who was laden with baskets of medicine, the ring pox inoculation, syringes, rubbing alcohol, and instructions. Dr. Hewett had showed Anthea his letter, which admitted that he had mostly inoculated horses, but since it seemed to be working on him, they should give it a try. Meanwhile, Dr. Rosemary got to work on a specific inoculation against the Dag, using the one for ring pox as a recipe.

  Tim, perched atop Campanula, now began to whistle. Loudly. No wonder Bluebell had decided carrying the child was beneath her dignity.

  This was not the way Anthea had pictured her first real mission as a member of the brigade. She had imagined thundering up the road, skidding into the village square, and holding aloft a saddlebag of medicine to a grateful populace. But between Tim and the heavy packs on Goldenrod, they could hardly move at a trot, let alone a gallop.

  “But if this goes well, they’re going to need inoculations at Bell Hyde,” she murmured.

  “Did you say something about Bellair again?” Tim’s chirping voice interrupted her thoughts. “Why would you go there? Isn’t it south of the Wall? Aren’t there even more sick people there? They don’t like horses, you know.” He shook his head over this.

  “They need medicine,” Anthea said tartly. “There are many sick people there. And some of them are family. My family. My friends.”

  “So your mother and father are there? In Bellair?” Tim would not be deterred.

  “My father is dead. My mother lives … very far away.”

  “Both my parents are dead,” he said. “They died when I was a baby. My nurse put me on a train with a note for my granddad when I was a year old. Granddad’s lived here for ages.” He took up his whistling again.

  That caught Anthea’s attention. “So you were born in Coronam?”

  “Yep. So was Granddad. ’Cept the king didn’t like him, so he moved up here.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  But a squirrel had caught young Tim’s attention, and it took a moment for Anthea to drag him back to the conversation.

  “I was born in Camryn,” Tim continued when they’d lost sight of the squirrel. “Have you ever been to Camryn?”

  “Yes,” Anthea said. “They are well known for their sheep, and the castle is one of the oldest structures in Coronam.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tim said. “My father worked in the castle. He used to lead people around, show them the dungeons.” Tim dropped his voice to make it sound spooky. “My granddad was the doctor in a village right by there,” he went on in his usual cheerful tone, “and his best friend was in charge of all the old books and stuff in the castle and the village. I think. No one ever tells me the name of the village.”

  “Oh,” Anthea said. “That’s nice, about the castle.”

  They were coming to a crossroads, and she steered Florian down the left-hand road. According to the signpost, they were only three miles from Parsiny.

  “Then my granddad’s friend, he read something in the old books about the Royal Family, and he showed Granddad, and they showed the king. And that’s why the king killed Granddad’s friend, and Granddad had to move here.”

  “What?” Anthea pulled up Florian.

  Beloved? What is wrong?

  “The king,” Tim repeated. “He didn’t like the books they found. So he burned them. Then he killed Granddad’s friend, and told Granddad he could come here or die, too.”

  Anthea was aghast. Who had told the child such a terrible story? His grandfather? Perhaps this was his way of covering up his true crime to spare his grandson’s feelings.

  “You shouldn’t say such things,” Anthea told him.

  The boy shrugged. “We’re almost there!” He spurred Campanula into a jog.

  Anthea followed at a walk for a while, but when she saw the village ahead, she stepped up the pace. She was tired, but she took a moment to wonder if she should explain the Way to Tim, and find out if he had it.

  They reached the well in the middle of the village square, and halted the horses. There was a small stone church, a store, a school, and several other buildings. A dog barked at the horses, and Arthur poked his head out of Anthea’s jacket to snap his beak at the dog, which ran off.

  “Where is everyone?” Anthea shifted uneasily in her saddle. Florian, sensing her nervousness, stopped lipping the bucket on the side of the well and laid back his ears.

  “They’re sick,” the boy said, as though talking to a simpleton. He slithered down from Campanula’s back, as neatly as if he’d been doing it for years. He pointed to a squat stone building on the left. “That’s Granddad’s surgery.”

  Anthea dismounted, trying to be as graceful as Tim and almost succeeding. She tied the horses to a post near a communal trough.

  Tim, meanwhile, had run to the surgery. Anthea hoped he wasn’t going to try and rouse his grandfather from his sickbed. She had no desire to meet the exile. She unloaded the supplies, lining them up on the green where they would be easy to find. She had the feeling that people were watching her from behind their curtains, but shook it off.

  “And here she is!” Tim came out of the clinic and pointed eagerly at Anthea.

  With him was a woman, not his grandfather, Anthea saw with relief. She was young, no more than thirty, and wore a neat brown skirt and pale blue blouse. She smiled warmly at Anthea.

  “How d’ye do, miss?” The woman crossed the green with light steps and held out a hand to Anthea.

  “Very well, thank you,” Anthea said automatically. She shook the offered hand, a little nervously despite her leather gloves.

  “You’ve brought us medicine?” The woman’s eyes lit on the parcels.

  “Yes, and instructions for administering inoculations. Though if you’ve had ring pox, you won’t need it,” Anthea said. She was aware that she was babbling, but she hadn’t really thought about what to say. “Tim told us the connection.”

  The woman looked at her in astonishment. “Oh, did ye not know that? Sir Timothy says they’re one and the same, really.”

  “Sir Timothy?”

  “Aye, young Tim’s granddad,” the woman said. She jerked her head back at the clinic. “Quite ill, poor soul. Nursed half the town until he fell ill himself.”

  “That’s a shame,” Anthea said. She lowered her voice, watching Tim as he prodded a box of blister ointment. “Will Sir Timothy … pull through?”

  “Most likely. He’s a tough old nut,” the woman said.

  “Do you think he might be well enough to h
elp take some samples? We are trying to formulate a more specific cure for the Dag,” Anthea said, throwing her shoulders back.

  “Oh, my! I’m sure I can help with that if Sir Timothy isn’t up to it,” the woman said, beaming. “I’m Mary Jones, by the way. I teach Tim and the other young folk.”

  “I’m Anthea … er, I’m Anthea,” Anthea said, deciding not to toss around her family name.

  “Thank you, Anthea. And thank your captain, as well. It’s wonderful of you horse-riders to deliver medicine this way.”

  “You’re welcome,” Anthea said. She looked at Mary curiously. “Are you really not afraid of horses?”

  “Oh, of course not!” Mary laughed. “We know better than to believe those old superstitions!”

  “Er, quite,” Anthea said.

  “Which superstitions?”

  A large man with rumpled white hair limped out of the office, leaning heavily on a cane. He coughed into a handkerchief and looked around with watering eyes.

  “Granddad, this is Anthea!” Tim ran up to throw an arm around the old man’s waist. He gestured extravagantly at Anthea, as though he had conjured her from thin air. “And those are three of her horses!”

  “They’re not my horses,” Anthea muttered, trying not to be rude and step back from the man who was both very ill and an exile. “Well, not all of them.”

  Florian had grunted and flipped his ears at her when she said they weren’t hers. Goldenrod, however, bobbed her head up and down in agreement.

  “They look to be fine beasts,” he said, but he was looking at Anthea more than the horses. His eyes, now that the tears brought on by his cough had cleared, were a sharp green and seemed to see right through Anthea. “And you’re Anthea, you said? Anthea what?”

  “Just Anthea is fine, sir,” she said.

  “You look very familiar,” he said.

  Before Anthea could think of a reply, Tim decided he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “She has the Way, Granddad! She must be a real Leanan! I always thought they’d look different, but she just looks the same as anybody!”

  He danced around his grandfather like a trained monkey. Anthea wondered if, like a monkey, he would be quiet if she gave him a biscuit.