[Sin Eater's Daughter 3] The Scarecrow Queen

by Melinda Salisbury

  “We’ll be caught if we go into the town.” My voice sounds hoarse, the smoke and the screaming shredding my throat. “There’s a curfew.”

  Merek shakes his head. “Aurek gave orders for everyone in Lortune to be roused to help put the fire out. Look.” Merek points down the lane, and after only a moment I see a man and a woman, wrapped up warm, racing past, heading in the direction of the castle. Then another man runs past, followed by a second, and a third. I can see the muted colours of their cloaks; dawn is coming. “It’ll be chaos. As long as we don’t linger, and we stay out of the soldiers’ way, this is perfect.”

  I’m aware that it’s dangerous, stupid even. It could be one of my ideas, it’s so reckless. But he’s right; I’m wearing a nightdress, for one thing. So I take his hand for a third time and allow him to lead me down into Lortune town.

  It is just as chaotic as he believed it would be, a wall of noise rising up as soon as we pass the buffer of the buildings. People are dashing left and right, calling out to each other, and it becomes almost immediately clear that very few of them are heading to aid their king. Instead they dart from one building to another, whispering news to each other, passing each other small bottles, bundles of clothing, taking advantage of the commotion to act as freely as they’ve been able to in a long time, avoiding the guards who try to herd them towards the castle.

  Merek pulls me through, yanking me down an alley to a squat building at the end. The windows are dark, but he pounds the door anyway.

  “Open up.” He hammers with his fist. “Open—”

  The door flies open, almost taking me with it, and a woman, tiny, wizened and crumpled like a raisin, stands there, brandishing a stick with a sharp metal tip on it.

  “I’ll die before I help that Tallithi bastard, so there’s no point asking me to haul water,” she hisses at Merek. “I’d sooner throw myself into the fire.”

  “I don’t want you to help him. I want you to help me.”

  She looks between the two of us. “Help you with what?”

  “Getting us out of here, finding Daunen Embodied, and getting my throne back.”

  The baldness of his confession shocks some of the heaviness from me.

  The woman leans forward, looming out of the darkness to peer at him. Then, to my surprise, she chuckles.

  “I knew it wasn’t your head up there,” she says, grinning wickedly, exposing a mouth with far more gum than teeth. “I knew it. That boy had laughter lines by his eyes. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve heard you laugh.”

  She holds up her hands to demonstrate, and I feel another jolt of shock as I register the missing fingers, two on her left, one on her right. She cackles again at the look on my face, and then reaches for us both, grabbing one of us in each hand and pulling us inside her home, closing the door firmly behind us. For someone who can’t be less than eighty, she’s incredibly strong. And fast.

  It’s warm in her cottage, stifling even, and I look around to see the windows covered in thick fabric, to hide the light and keep the heat in.

  “Margot Cottar.” Merek introduces the woman to me when she turns from bolting the door. “This is Errin Vastel.” She spins around to glare at me and he carries on quickly, “Yes, she’s the Silver Knight’s sister. But definitely not on his side.”

  “I hate him,” I growl.

  Margot looks me up and down, and nods, as though Merek’s vouching for me and my words are enough. “So what do you need? I assume that’s why you’re here.”

  “She needs clothes, whatever you have that would be fit for running and riding, and boots. We need cloaks, water. Food.”

  “Where do you head?”

  “Scarron,” I say, as Merek says, “We don’t know.”

  Margot looks between us. “I’ll get your things while you decide.” She bustles off through a small door into another room, leaving us alone.

  Outside I hear people passing the cottage, but their voices are muted. The room is small, possibly smaller than the front room of the Almwyk cottage, though it’s cleaner and better cared for than that place ever was. A small, well-worn table is pressed against a wall, two equally weathered chairs beneath it. There’s a rocking chair by the fire, a thickly woven blanket matching the rag rug on the floor. There are little touches too, a small vase on the mantelpiece, empty at the moment, a toy soldier, the paint chipped almost entirely away. A basket full of yarn at the side of the chair.

  “I think she’s in Scarron.” I look at Merek, who is examining the room too. “Lief told Aurek the same. It would make sense. She has a house there; it’s isolated, difficult to reach at this time of year, and the people there love her. I saw them. They’ll protect her.”

  Merek shakes his head, dismissing the idea. “She can’t be organizing the Rising Dawn from there.”

  “If it’s even her behind it,” I remind him. “We can’t be sure.”

  “I know it’s her,” Merek says. “Don’t ask me how, I just do.”

  I sigh. “Then where do we go?”

  “I don’t know. She’s probably hiding somewhere. As you say, remote and secure.”

  I think frantically. “Silas said his mother lived with a group of women near the East Mountains. Wait, you don’t think. . .”

  Merek’s face goes slack, his mouth opening. “How did I not. . .” He trails off, shaking his head. “Of course.”

  “What?” I demand.

  “There was an order of women based there. Very secluded. Very private. I wrote to them to ask if they’d take my mother once Twylla and I were married.”

  “You what?”

  He shrugs. “They refused. What?” he says when I continue to gawp at him.

  “You planned to ship her off to a bunch of nuns in the mountains once you were married? Like unwanted clothing. Like something you owned.” Something loud falls to the floor in the room Margot went into. We both look towards the doorway, then back at each other.

  “You didn’t know my mother,” he says quietly.

  “Even so. That’s a terrible thing to think you can do.”

  Merek takes a deep breath. “My mother killed my stepfather. Possibly my father. In fact, she killed a lot of people. Shipping her off, as you put it, would have been a kindness. A less merciful king would have had her executed on numerous counts of murder.”

  We both fall silent, listening to Margot rummaging loudly, muttering to herself at the same time.

  “How do you know her?” I lower my voice. I don’t bother asking if we can trust her; we wouldn’t be here otherwise.

  “She’s the great-aunt of one of my personal guards . . . and friends,” he adds. “She raised him and his brother and sister when their parents died.” He pauses. “The sister was Dimia.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know what else to say for a moment. “And the others?”

  “My mother had Asher, the eldest boy, executed while I was away on my progress. His brother, Taul, was with me at the time. I don’t know where he is now – he rode for Tallith the day I deposed my mother to recover his sister’s body. He never came back.”

  “I hope he’s miles away.” We both turn to see Margot Cottar in the doorway, her small arms loaded with provisions. “I hope he got in a boat and sailed over the Tallithi Sea to somewhere warm and wonderful and full of naked young women or men eager to please him.”

  Merek smiles wryly.

  “See what I mean.” Margot smiles a toothless grin in my direction. “More likely to get blood from a stone than a laugh from him. Here.” She brandishes the pile at Merek, who goes to collect it.

  “You ought to show me more respect,” he says, passing me a thick woollen overtunic, leather breeches, a white shirt and a pair of battered boots. “I’m the king.”

  “You’ve been usurped,” Margot says bluntly, tossing underwear at me and grabbing Merek’s arm, pulling him around so I have some privacy to change. I quickly pull the underwear on under the nightdress, and then shuck it off, slipping the undersh
irt and tunic over my head and tugging the breeches on. “I’ll show you respect when you kill that monster and get your crown back,” Margot continues.

  “Liar,” Merek says smoothly. “You’ve never shown me a day’s respect in my life.”

  “I had five brothers, three husbands, brought up eight sons of my own, and then two great-nephews. I learned the hard way that if you give a boy respect before he’s done anything to earn it, he’ll walk all over you. Pretty prince or not. If you put the Sleeping Prince in his grave, I’ll kneel to you and kiss your feet. Then you’ll have earned it.”

  She turns back to me and winks as I haul the boots on to my feet. “Thank you,” I say. “These are wonderful.”

  “They were Asher’s, when he was around your age. Not the boots. They were my Mia’s. Never seemed right to get rid of them. They’re good bits. Glad they’ll come in useful.”

  I nod solemnly. “I’ll take care of them.”

  Her mouth quirks as though to make one of her snappy remarks when the deep, booming ring of a bell sounds in the distance.

  Merek and I exchange a panicked glance. “He knows,” I mutter.

  “It could be another call to aid at the castle,” he says, but his expression makes it clear he doesn’t believe it either.

  “We have to go.” I turn back to Margot. “Thank you, for everything.”

  “There’s no need,” she says firmly. She holds out a bag to me. “I’ve packed bread, water, a bit of cheese, a bit of ham, and some—”

  I hit her in the face before she has time to finish.

  She flies back, crashing into the little table. I lunge around wildly, hands clawed and reaching.

  “Merek, stop me,” I beg, my body moving entirely against my will. I knock a vase from the mantle, kick a chair and cry out in pain, but still I move, lashing out, kicking and wheeling and hitting. “Merek, please!” I scream as my fingers snarl in Margot’s shawl.

  She twists away but stumbles and falls, leaving me with the garment in my hands. Merek drops the bag and rushes at me, but I manage to hit him on the side of the neck, causing him to stumble.

  “What are you doing, girl?” Margot screeches at me, scrambling away.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeat, trying desperately to wrench myself away from them both

  Somewhere out there, Aurek has commanded my simulacrum to attack, so attack I do, lurching towards her as she cowers in a corner.

  “You said she could be trusted!” Margot cries at Merek, still gasping on the floor.

  My hand knocks against the sharpened stick she held when she opened the door, and then grips it tightly as my arm swings it high over my head.

  “Run,” I whisper.

  As she shrinks to the ground, looking every inch the elderly woman she is, I feel arms around me, binding mine to my sides. I thrash my head back, but Merek dodges, tightening his grip.

  “You have to stop me,” I say. “Please, Merek.” I kick back, striking his shin and loosening his hold for a moment. Then his arm is around my neck, the inside of his elbow pressed against my throat, and my thrashing becomes wilder as he squeezes, denying me air.

  “Sorry,” he says.

  I look up at him as blackness clouds my vision, still struggling. Then I’m gone.

  When I come to, everything is still black, and a faint pressure across my nose, the sensation of rough fabric on my skin, tells me I’ve been blindfolded, though I’m sure Aurek can’t use the simulacrum to see through my eyes. My neck feels tender, and my wrists chafe against the rope binding them behind my back. My legs too are bound at the ankle. In the distance the bell is still ringing, a deep ominous sound that I can feel echoed in my heartbeat.

  “Hello?” I say to the room.

  There is a noise overhead, a creaking sound, then footsteps on stairs.

  “Hello,” Merek says from somewhere to my left.

  “Is she all right?”

  There is a small silence. “Yes. Frightened. But also angry. Not at you,” he adds quickly. “At the Sleeping Prince. For controlling you in that way.”

  I hear a second set of steps on the stairs, slower than Merek’s, and I wait until they shuffle into the room.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say immediately. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  Neither of them says a word, and behind the blindfold my eyes dart back and forth.

  Then short, cold fingers touch my face, the gaps between some of them too wide.

  “Why is she blindfolded?” Margot asks.

  “Because. . .” Merek begins, then stops. “I don’t know. I didn’t know if he could see through her eyes, and would see where we were. I don’t really understand how it works.”

  “I don’t think he can see through my eyes,” I say, and immediately the blindfold is pulled away. “I don’t know for sure. But I don’t think he can. The golems can’t see, but they use some other sense, to attack, and I think it must be the same with me. And he can’t control my mind, either. He can only make my body do things. He writes the command down on a piece of paper and then wraps it round the simulacrum.”

  “But how is that connected to you?”

  “Blood. He feeds my blood to the doll, and adds a drop of his to activate it.”

  Margot nods, and looks over at Merek.

  “Blood degrades,” she says. “It’s a natural substance; it’ll break down. Without a fresh supply, he won’t be able to control your body any more. But for the time being, he can control you at will.”

  “He can get into her dreams too,” Merek says.

  “Could he get into your dreams and control your body at the same time?”

  I hesitate. “Once, I was dreaming, and he was talking to me in the dream, and then I was awake but I was standing on the windowsill. Not in my bed. . .” I shiver, remembering. “We were both awake by then – I don’t think he can do both at the same time.”

  “Well. You need to decide what you’re going to do,” Margot says. “It’s not practical for you to be bound all the time. What about when you’re on the move? What about when you have to clean yourself? What if you’re attacked?”

  “I told you this,” I say to Merek, anger at myself making my words sharp. “I told you the risk of my leaving. I knew Aurek would do something like this. I could have killed you,” I say to Margot, shame colouring my cheeks.

  “It’d take more than a slip of a girl to kill me,” she says over her shoulder, but even I notice she sounds less full of bravado than she did earlier. Before, she was all jokes and waspish words. Now, though, she’s unsure. Because of me.

  “Maybe I should go back,” I say to Merek. “Give myself up.”

  He gives a long sigh. “That would be a very stupid thing to do,” he says bluntly. “Firstly, you’d be dead before sunrise. The fact we both got away tonight is a miracle, we won’t get another chance. Secondly, as Margot said, blood decays. The spell, or whatever it is he’s holding you under, will fade. And besides, Lief said he’d try to destroy it.”

  This time Margot and I sniff identical sounds of dislike and distrust. Then I remember the piece of paper Lief handed to Merek.

  “What was on the parchment? The one Lief gave you.”

  His eyebrows rise as he remembers, and leans back to pull it from his pocket. He unfolds it, frowns, and then holds it out to me.

  It takes me less than a second to understand it’s the recipe for the Opus Magnum. In my brother’s spidery handwriting.

  It’s all there; everything I remember from the table in the Conclave. Sal Salis, a pinch of marigold, morning glory, a vial of angel water, spagyric tonic, three bay leaves, the root of a mandrake, convolvulus, yew bark, ears of wheat. Asulfer. Quicksilver. The times at which the flowers and leaves need to be picked, the way they need to be stored until used. Even a recommendation for the kind of wood to use to create the fire. The process for every part written down, possibly for the first time in living history – in any history.

  The key to defeating th
e Sleeping Prince.

  Merek stares at me over the paper. “How?” he asks.

  I shake my head, still struck mute by it. It’s exactly what I need to deconstruct it. With it I can reverse every single detail. Beside me Merek is beaming, really truly beaming, causing Margot to stare at him. I can see her lips moving as she talks, and he parries the remarks with his own, the danger that I am forgotten in light of this new miracle Merek said we wouldn’t get.

  “Give that to me.” Margot snatches the recipe from me, returning to her back room. I look at Merek in alarm, but he shakes his head, trusting her. When she returns, she hands him the paper, and I see something glistening on the surface. Merek pulls a face as he takes it and folds it delicately, replacing it in his pocket.

  Where did Lief get it? Not Silas; Silas would have told me. A twinge of guilt makes me wonder where Silas is now, and I offer up a wish that he’s all right, that he won’t be punished for this. Then my thoughts turn to Lief, and I wonder if he’s survived his treachery. And what motivated it. I understood why he allowed Twylla to escape – because of what they had shared. And I understood why he kept Merek’s identity secret – Lief never liked to be in anyone’s debt. But handing us the key to the Sleeping Prince’s destruction? Getting the recipe must have taken work, and skill.

  It doesn’t make sense.

  Whose side is Lief on?

  Before I can give it any real thought, I become dimly aware that the bell outside is ringing faster, becoming frantic, as though the ringer isn’t pausing between hauling on the rope, pulling it down again almost as soon as it’s tolled. Margot crosses to the window, moving the covering aside a fraction and peering out.

  Then she spins away from the window. “You need to go,” she says. “They’re searching the houses.”

  Chapter 14

  Merek moves almost before Margot has finished speaking.