Darkwood

by M. E. Breen

Page wanted to know everything that had happened to Annie since she left Uncle Jock’s. Annie wanted to know when the king would rescue Gregor from the Drop.

  “When?” Annie asked for the hundredth time that morning. Page leaned down to inspect a mat in Sharta’s fur. Her hair swung forward to hide her face.

  “Soon. He’s meeting with his advisors every day.” She tugged at the mat with her own gold comb.

  “What does he need advisors for? Doesn’t he have an army? Couldn’t he just send an army?”

  Page rested her forehead on the kinderstalk’s back. She closed her eyes. “Annie, from what you’ve told me … have you considered that Gregor may not be alive?”

  “Of course! I don’t know!” Annie shouted, and then, stubbornly, “When will the king send someone to the Drop?”

  “I don’t know. Soon.”

  “You do know! He doesn’t care!”

  “He does care.”

  “Then when?”

  And round and round they went, Page alternately embarrassed, weary, awkward, and at last, angry.

  “You’re such a pest! Stop badgering me!”

  Hurt, Annie turned away. “You’ve taken his side.”

  “This isn’t you and me against Uncle Jock anymore,” Page snapped, and strode out of the shelter.

  Annie stared after her until a pressure against her hip made her look down. The kinderstalk stood beside her. Carefully, she let one hand rest on his head.

  An army of women burst into Annie’s room the next morning. They bore brushes, curlers, pots and jars, swaths of silk and lace, a pincushion the size of a hedgehog.

  “What is all this?” Annie asked, edging away.

  “Why, for the reception, Miss! Measurements first, then hair and face, then the dress should be just ready.”

  There commenced such a poking, pushing, and prodding that Annie took a silent vow: if Page married the king, and if Annie was to live here as some kind of princess, she would stay with Sharta and wear her own old dress every day. Or perhaps, she amended, as a maid dropped a petticoat of softest linen over her head, perhaps she would allow them to make her some underwear.

  Annie had encountered various lords and ladies during her walks around the palace with Page, a blur of wigs and lace and pursed lips and cold eyes. The maids were different. If they noticed her awkwardness they gave no sign of it, except perhaps through little flurries of praise.

  “What a lovely color against Miss’s complexion!”

  “Straight as a statue Miss stands!”

  “Such pretty hair Miss has!”

  One of the maids, Pamela, decided that because Annie had such a great quantity of her own hair, and the color was so very dark, and the darkest wig on hand not quite dark enough, that they would make do with what they called a “natural” style.

  “Only, Miss …” Pamela sounded nervous.

  “What is it?” Annie asked.

  “The patch of white here, at the nape. Would you like it to show, or not to show? Or should I powder the whole? Or perhaps a coil at the back, and the rest on top?”

  Annie touched the back of her head, but the white hair didn’t feel any different from the rest. Suddenly, like a blow to the stomach, she missed Gregor. He would have found the white patch interesting, an oddity of nature, neither disgusting nor beautiful, but good, because strange.

  “Miss?”

  “Hide it, I suppose. Whatever you like.”

  At last, giggling and smiling, a girl took each of Annie’s hands and led her to the mirror. She looked both better and worse than she had feared. Worse, because she looked like a dressed-up child, fooling herself into thinking she was a woman. Better, because the weight of her hair and the cold press of jewels at her neck made her hold her head straight and still. She looked haughty as a queen. The thought made her blush, but the blush didn’t show beneath all the powder on her face.

  After the maids left, Annie spent a few minutes standing in the middle of the room, afraid to sit down on the piles of crinoline. When a knock sounded at the door she yanked it open.

  “Page, you can’t imagine how long …”

  The doctor raised his eyebrows above his round glasses.

  “Ah, yes. The tribulations of beauty.” He looked her over. “Beauty, or its pretense.”

  Annie had withdrawn at the sight of him, but now he took a step toward her. “Young lady, I am to escort you to the throne room.”

  “Where is my sister?”

  “Perhaps she is otherwise occupied? His Highness asked me to escort you.”

  Reluctantly, Annie extended her hand. Instead of tucking it under his arm as she had seen the lords and ladies do around the palace, the doctor lifted her hand to his face. For a horrible moment she thought he would kiss it, but instead he pushed his glasses onto his forehead and peered at her fingers. Her nails seemed to interest him most.

  “Of average length and sharpness, I should say,” he murmured.

  Annie pulled her hand away. The maids had left a pair of satin elbow-length gloves that she had judged too ridiculous to wear, but now she put them on gratefully.

  The doctor led her downstairs and across the great open chamber of black and white tiles. They walked through the same corridor that Annie had visited with Page, the ladies in the portraits reclining against the same cushions, the lords leering down at the same slain kinderstalk. Annie’s image flashed in the mirrors that hung between each portrait: herself, a stranger, herself, a stranger.

  They reached the end of the corridor and stopped before a pair of carved double doors. The doctor paused, his hands on the door handles. He cocked an eyebrow at Annie.

  “Ready?”

  “Why am I here? What is this about?”

  The doctor smiled his sour smile. “I believe you are to be presented with an award of some kind.”

  An award?

  The doctor pushed open the doors.

  “Miss Annie Trewitt,” he announced, and bowed low. He moved aside and held out his hand. Annie stepped forward, taking his cold fingers in her colder ones. She was glad the doctor had announced her, for she could barely remember her own name, let alone speak it. Every inch of the vast room glittered with ringstone. Stones studded the high vaulted ceiling, winked out from window frames and sparkled from the inlaid floor. The king’s throne, mounted on a dais, pulsed with pinkish green light, brightening the figure of the king so much that it was painful to look at him. Annie shielded her eyes, then, fearing she had been rude, dropped her hand and just stood there, squinting. The king gestured languidly with one hand and immediately filmy curtains were drawn across the windows, dimming the room enough that Annie could see properly.

  She almost wished she couldn’t. The room was filled, crammed, with lords and ladies of the court. In addition to the men at arms in their red and gold uniforms were ladies and gentlemen in waiting, cousins, aunts, uncles, distant relations, relations of the distant relations, all looking at her.

  Annie curtsied as Page had taught her, then waited. When the king did nothing, she curtsied again. A ripple of laughter passed through the assembly.

  “Approach.”

  At the sound of the king’s voice the room fell silent. Annie took a step forward. The polished floor was slick as ice. By the time she reached the edge of the dais her whole body prickled with sweat.

  “You may mount the dais.”

  A few gasps from the crowd told her this was not a usual privilege. The platform was high enough that she wished she could put her hands on the edge to steady herself, but somehow that seemed the wrong thing to do. In her nervousness she misjudged her strength. The momentum of her step carried her over the edge of the dais across the few feet still separating her from the throne. She caught herself before she ended up in the king’s lap, but not before she saw a shadow of fear cross his face.

  The crowd had caught its breath when Annie stumbled and still seemed to be holding it. The silence went on and on, but because the king didn’t seem to care
, Annie found she didn’t either. Let the lords and ladies squirm for a bit. As if he had read her mind, one side of the king’s mouth lifted. He was enjoying this. Suddenly Annie felt sad for him, though she couldn’t have said exactly why.

  She certainly saw why he made people stand so far away. Up close, the signs of the attack—her attack—were more obvious. The cuts on his face had been stitched and covered in plaster, the plaster then covered over with heavy powder. His skin was pale beneath what could only have been rouge on his cheeks and lips, and beneath his chin Annie could see the purple smudge of a bruise.

  To Miss Annie Trewitt,

  Daughter of Shar and Helen Trewitt,

  Who, in the Commitment of an Action both

  Selfless and Courageous,

  Resulting in the Aversion of an Event of Great Violence

  Intended to Our Person and Our Court,

  Namely, the Attack by Beastly Hordes,

  Namely, the Kinderstalk,

  Has Won our Enduring Gratitude and Trust,

  We Award

  The Royal Medal of Honorable Distinction.

  All through the ceremony, through the blaring of the trumpets, the unfurling of the scroll, the recitation of the deed, the presentation of the medal, and the bestowing of the blessing, Annie stared at that bruise. The king, in turn, never once took his eyes from her face. This, then, was how he had decided to punish her: to hold her up before the entire court as a model of bravery when only the two of them—and Page, oh, where was Page?—knew that she was little better than an animal.

  At last it was over. The lords and ladies filed out, and all the light and color seemed to drain out of the room with them. Only the king, Annie, and the doctor remained. Annie was wondering how to take her leave—should she ask for permission or simply begin backing away?—when a painting on the wall opposite the windows caught her attention. The painting was a formal portrait of a group of men, each almost life size. The man in the center stood with his foot propped up on something, looking directly out from the canvas. The others looked at him. They were all finely dressed, but scattered around them were picks and shovels and scrolls of paper. Mining equipment. It must be a scene from the story Beatrice had told her, the first Terrance Uncton standing with his foot on the column of ring-stone. He looked handsome and young, and a little bored with having his portrait painted. Annie’s eyes slid to the figure next to him. This man was kneeling, his face at a slight angle. In one hand he held a set of scales, in the other, a whip. He wore the same elaborately curled beard and heavy sideburns as the other men, but his mouth showed plainly, a red line drawn nearly ear to ear. Something bulged against the closed lips.

  To the left of the portrait hung a round ringstone plaque about the size of a dinner plate. The plaque bore an inscription, the letters rough and uneven: “Prop. of Tr. Uncton.”

  The double doors burst open and Page flew into the room. When her feet slid out from under her on the slick floor, she threw out the cane, righted herself, and kept going as if nothing had happened.

  She climbed the dais without a moment’s hesitation—there were stairs, it turned out, that Annie hadn’t seen—and reached toward the king as though she was going to grasp his sleeve. She caught herself before she touched him.

  “The assayer from the Drop is here.”

  The king nodded to the doctor. “Quince, you may go.”

  The assayer was shown in, self-conscious in his riding clothes and clearly exhausted. The king’s face darkened as he listened to the report. Page looked anxious. Annie felt angry. Nothing the man said differed from what she had already told them. The Drop was chipping out at twice the expected rate. Well, of course it was. They were mining it day and night. The stone produced at the Drop was of inferior quality than projected. Well, yes, because all of the good stone was going into the pit at Chopper’s farm. The miners had the appearance of malnourishment. Their living conditions were substandard. Yes, and yes.

  And were children being forced to work the mine?

  “Your Highness, this I cannot verify. I noted a building fitting the description of the orphanage, but when I requested entry the individual on duty”—he pulled a much-creased paper from his pocket and consulted it—“one Silas Smirch, claimed the building was dangerously unsound, and he could not allow me to risk injury by entering. I asked to see his superior, a man named”—he consulted his paper again—“Mr. Lindsey Chopswart.”

  Annie pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from smiling at this completely inappropriate time. Chopper’s given name was Lindsey?

  “Mr. Chopswart was very polite in his insistence on the danger of entering the building,” the assayer went on. “Or rather, his words were polite. However, his tone—I can only describe his tone as full of threat.”

  “Threat!” the king said.

  “No actual threats were issued, Your Highness. It was merely a question of tone. And, if I may add, they are men of not inconsiderable bulk.”

  The assayer, who was on the skinny side himself, looked around the room for sympathy.

  “I could wish you had insisted on entry, nevertheless,” said the king.

  “Begging pardon, Your Highness, but perhaps if I had traveled with a guard—”

  “Thank you. You may go.” The king waved his hand.

  The assayer ducked his head. “Your Highness, I have one further piece of information that may interest you. As I was preparing to leave, an individual of very large size approached me. Of immense size, this man was, such size as made his fellows seem—”

  “Size noted,” the king snapped.

  “This man spoke not a word but led me behind the building in question, where there stood a kiln. And beside the kiln was a row of boots.”

  “Boots?” The king raised his eyebrows.

  “Children’s boots, by their appearance. The large man picked up a pair that might have fit a child of three or four, and tossed them on the fire. Then he walked away.”

  “And what do you assume from this?” asked the king.

  “I make no assumptions, Your Highness. I merely relay facts.”

  But Annie knew what to assume. Hauler had wanted the assayer to know there were children at the Drop. And if Hauler wanted to help the other children, that meant … She felt a sudden surge of hope for Gregor and had to clap her hand over her mouth again to keep from grinning.

  As soon as the assayer left, Page started to pace the short distance of the dais. Her gown swirled with every turn. Through Page’s stockings Annie could see the bulge where the broken ankle bones had fused unevenly.

  “Obviously Gibbet wasn’t at any great pains to explain this away,” Page muttered. “Even an imbecile would notice the mine chipping out twenty years ahead of schedule.” She looked up. “Not that you’re … I didn’t mean …”

  The king gave a tight smile. “Of course not. And you are correct about Gibbet. He must have known his smuggling would be exposed eventually, and the visit by the assayer has made the case plain.” He looked at Annie. “He has known himself exposed for some weeks already. Miss Trewitt here escaped through his tunnel, after all.”

  “But he would never guess she’d come here!” Page exclaimed.

  “He doesn’t have to guess,” Annie said.

  “What do you mean?” The king’s voice was sharp.

  “He has an informant,” she clarified. “Someone who—”

  “Yes, I’m aware of what an informant is. Do you realize the gravity of the accusation you’re making?”

  Annie forced herself to meet his gaze. Her heart felt suspended high in her chest, the way it had after she and Gregor jumped from Quail Rock, hanging a moment in midair before plummeting into the river. She took a deep breath.

  “The potion you use on the gardens to make the flowers bloom in winter, the potion you used on me, it’s the same one Gibbet gives to the men at the Drop. And to the children.”

  The king opened his mouth, but she hurried on.

  “The
farm where Chopper caught me—the garden there is like this one, always in bloom. And the workers at the Drop all smell the same. They all smell sweet. I think if you give too much, it puts the person to sleep, but if you give just the right amount, they … they sleepwalk. They sleepwalk through everything, they don’t complain, they don’t try to run away. Chopper’s garden is full of it, all the plants, so if you eat them you fall asleep, like I did. Either someone at the palace has passed the potion along to Gibbet without you knowing, or—”

  “Or I sanctioned its use on the miners? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  Annie stole a look at Page. She was gaping—literally gaping—at the king.

  “Terrance?”

  “The potion has been used to beautify the palace gardens since long before I was born. It was a gift to the first Terrance Uncton from a friend and fellow surveyor. There is nothing dangerous about it.”

  Annie looked at the portrait on the wall behind them. “What was the name of the man who gave Uncton the potion?” she asked.

  The king followed her gaze. A strange look came over his face, as though he wasn’t sure whether to be frightened or pleased.

  “Gibbet,” he said. “The Gibbet family has been a friend of the crown for a long time. Until now.”

  “Then there is no informant.” Page sounded relieved. “And the king would never allow that stuff to be used on the miners.” She looked at Annie as if to say, You see, he’s not so bad.

  He sanctioned its use on me, Annie wanted to answer, but she didn’t.

  “Would it be so very bad if I had?” asked the king.

  “What?” Page and Annie said at the same time.

  “With the failure of the farms in the region, and the”—he spoke the next words rather quickly—“the incorporation of the fisheries, the people of Dour County may have found their opportunities for work somewhat curtailed. Would a man be so terrible to provide them something to make the difficult work of mining more palatable?”

  Without a word, Page descended the dais and walked to the door.

  “Would a man be so terrible?” the king called after her. “Would a man be unlovable, who did so?”