The Queen's Necklace

by Teresa Edgerton

  Sometimes, Ys closed her eyes and tried not to listen, but the old man continued to buzz in her ear like a particularly annoying gnat, and some of what he said inevitably penetrated.

  Even to dress in the morning was going to take hours, as there would be separate women appointed to hand over her shift—her petticoats—her garters—her stockings—each one fiercely protective of her hereditary “privilege.”

  “Feuds have begun,” said Lord Wittlesbeck, “and have lasted for generations, over a single encroachment—a glove in the hands of the wrong noblewoman, a countess who had the temerity to usurp the duties of a royal duchess—and it will be up to you to make certain that nothing of the sort happens again.”

  “I?” said Ys, her eyes flying open. “I look after the whole quarrelsome brood like—like a school-mistress or a nursemaid? Surely they will be there to look after me?”

  “They will be there to enhance your status,” replied the Master of Ceremonies, with a lift of his insignificant small nose. “And to enhance their own. Your comfort, your convenience will not matter to them at all—as, indeed, it should not matter to you. You will learn, mademoiselle, that superior minds are above such trifling considerations. Heat, cold, hunger, boredom, thirst—these things are but transitory. But beauty, elegance, the continuation of an ancient tradition—these endure.”

  Ys stared at him, her eyes growing wide with disbelief. It seemed to her these petty Human monarchs had arranged everything the wrong way around. Yet when she looked at those portraits of the Maglore Empresses up on the wall—when she saw them, with their still pale faces and their cold dark eyes, prisoners inside their stiff, bejeweled, old-fashioned gowns and their monstrous yellow cartwheel ruffs—it seemed as though they must have suffered, too. Why had they done so?

  Madame would say that they did what they did for pride, for dignity, above all for Power. But what was the use of Power, Ys wondered, unless it allowed you to make other people uncomfortable, to suit your personal convenience?

  The discovery of a nest of rats in the Archives eventually drove Ys and Lord Wittlesbeck to a lower chamber, this one more open and airy, and a series of lessons on dancing and deportment.

  Yet Ys was no happier now than she had been before. She listened with a mutinous heart and a resentful spirit, as the fussy little man instructed her in the art of the perfect graceful curtsy.

  “No, no, no, mademoiselle! The wrists must be held exactly so. And as one rises, the head must dip just the slightest—Mademoiselle Debrûle are you attending to me at all?”

  “No,” said Ys, rising straight up. “I am not attending.”

  The skill in question was one she believed she had already mastered. Even Madame Solange, that harshest of critics, had agreed that she did it very prettily. But now it appeared, all these months later, her previous training was quite inadequate. There was not one single form of obeisance she was expected to learn. There were three basic styles—the nod, the bow, the deep genuflection—and dozens of different variations, each one precisely calculated to the relative ages and titles of the parties involved.

  Ys smoothed out the skirts of her new silk gown, made a slight adjustment to the old and valuable rose-point lace fichu covering her shoulders. “When I am King Jarred’s queen, everyone will bow and curtsy to me. When that day comes, there will be nothing for me to do but respond with a regal inclination of my head.”

  Lord Wittlesbeck cleared his throat, rocked back on the heels of his tiny pumps, regarded her sternly. “Mademoiselle, there will be a period between the day when your betrothal is officially announced and the day you are wed. During that time, it will be up to you to set an example for others to follow later.

  “I know nothing of the customs in Château-Rouge—or in any of the other places mademoiselle may have graced with her presence—but if you will heed my advice, you will pattern your behavior after King Jarred’s, which is always impeccable.”

  Ys bit her lip. She was growing heartily sick of hearing King Jarred’s perfections endlessly extolled, and she wondered what she could have possibly done to deserve such a noble bore for her future husband.

  The lesson over, Ys gathered up her fan, her gloves, her cloak, and pinned on her big, black velvet hat. She left the room in a rush, almost colliding with the king’s uncle in the corridor outside.

  “Lord Hugo Sackville,” she said, with a cold, perfunctory nod, her lessons in courtesy apparently forgotten.

  The stout old gentleman leered at her. “Mademoiselle Debrûle. You seem to be quite a fixture at Lindenhoff these days. If I may say so, you are looking particularly delightful this afternoon; I do not think I have seen that gown before.”

  Ys felt her stomach turn over in disgust. She knew what he was thinking: that she was Jarred’s mistress, that her lovely new things had been his gifts, his payment for services rendered.

  “You may recall, Lord Hugo, that I am but recently out of mourning.” And she swept on past him, before he could detain her a moment longer. As much as she disliked them all, as much as she despised every Human in the palace—from the scullions down in the kitchen all the way up to Jarred himself—she held a special contempt for this aging lecher.

  She ran down three flights of stairs and climbed into the open carriage that was waiting for her down in the courtyard. She told the Ouph coachman to go slowly, as her head was aching. This was not strictly true: she felt light-headed and more than a little queasy after so many hours in that stifling salon, but it was her back and her legs that ached, a nagging pain that had been with her for days. Yet she was not inclined to confide such intimate details to a mere coachman, so she pleaded a headache. The barouche went out though the palace gate at a slow and stately pace.

  Ys closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the padded seat. How she would make them pay—for all the discomforts, all the indignities! Her elegant mind was not above considering these “trifling” matters, and she fully intended to be revenged when the time was right.

  The carriage swayed as it turned a corner. Feeling somewhat revived by the cold air, Ys opened her eyes and glanced around her. The barouche was crossing a neat little brick-paved square at the center of town. A movement caught her eye, caused her to turn her head. An exceedingly handsome youth in a striped satin waistcoat and a large snowy neckcloth was bowing in her direction. Recognizing him at once, Ys felt a sudden stir of excitement and instructed the driver to pull up his horses immediately.

  As the barouche rattled to a halt, the good-looking youngster moved to intercept it. With one hand on the door, he smiled up at Ys. “If the lady permits?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Ys, suddenly breathless. “Come with me, Zmaj. I’ve had the most deadly afternoon! It is time that I had some amusing company.”

  Zmaj opened the door, ascended gracefully, and sat down on the seat beside her. He had lived for a time at the mansion with Ys and Madame, but he was lodged now in rented rooms. It had been almost a month since his last visit, not since Ys abandoned the blacks and greys and whites of half-mourning. With a lift of one dark eyebrow, he took her in: the dashing hat, the dainty gloves embroidered with seed-pearls, the new and elaborate way that she had of wearing her bright golden curls.

  Though she had bitterly resented a similar scrutiny on the part of Lord Hugo, she felt a thrill of pleasure at the frank admiration in the Maglore youth’s gaze.

  Perhaps because Zmaj was so beautiful himself. His skin was so white as to be nearly transparent, his features were chiseled—the shape of his mouth was particularly enchanting—the dark hair curled at the nape of his neck, where it was caught back and held by an immense black bow. Yet for all his prettiness, he was tall and well-made, and whatever he happened to be doing—whether it was walking, or dancing, or sitting, or especially making love—he did with a muscular grace that was peculiarly his own.

  But perhaps, Ys cautioned herself as the carriage moved on, she was so enamored just because Zmaj, and his brother Jmel, and his c
ousin Izek, were the only young Maglore she had ever met.

  “Beautiful, but of limited intelligence.” That was how Madame Solange described the three boys. “Like too many of our kind they lack certain qualities, qualities which I have labored mightily to instill in you.” Ys put a hand to her brow. She was tired of carrying Madame’s ideas, Madame’s pronouncements, even Madame’s voice inside of her head wherever she went.

  She tried to make light conversation as the carriage left the town and started down the shady country road leading to the mansion. Though it was Ys who spoke and Zmaj who sat back with a satisfied smile, playing with his coral and tortoiseshell watch fobs, the journey passed swiftly. Just outside the gates, the barouche stopped, and Zmaj descended. He handed Ys down, dismissed the driver with a casual wave, then offered her an arm and escorted her into the house.

  They paused in the vaulted entry hall, where Ys hesitated. For some reason, Madame was now discouraging his visits—though an affair between him and Ys had clearly been part of her plan from the very beginning.

  Thinking of how prettily Zmaj made love, Ys made up her mind to defy her governess. With a blush and a rapidly beating heart, she offered him her hand, a gesture that might have meant dismissal as easily as invitation. But Zmaj being Zmaj—and every bit as aware of his own beauty as she was—he needed no more encouragement than that.

  With careless gallantry, he raised her hand to his lips, kissed first the palm, then the place on her wrist where the blood raced so swiftly beneath the skin. He was just leaning over to kiss the pulse-point at the base of her throat—But a door burst open somewhere above, there were hurried footsteps, and Madame Solange swept majestically down the carved oak staircase, with Ys’s Aunt Sophie trailing three steps behind.

  Though Zmaj had jumped back at the first opening of the door, though he and Ys were standing decorously at opposite ends of the hall, with a vast stretch of black-and-white floor between them by the time she reached the foot of the stairs, it took Madame but a single comprehensive glance to assess the situation.

  “That will do, Zmaj,” Her dark eyes moved from one flushed and excited face to the other. “It was good of you to escort Her Highness home, but your presence here is no longer required.” And the Maglore youth, without demure, bowed to each of the ladies in turn and quietly left the house.

  He was of Imperial Blood, just as Ys was herself. So why, she wondered resentfully, did he allow Madame to speak to him so? He was not the one who had spent his entire life under her thumb.

  But they all obeyed Madame: Lord Vif, Aunt Sophie, Zmaj and Jmel, and all the other Maglore who had joined them in Tarnburgh—quite as though it were Madame Solange who was the Empress-born, instead of Ys. “They like taking orders,” said that intrusive voice in her mind. “It spares them from thinking too far ahead for themselves.”

  “As for you—” It was the real Madame Solange speaking now, in her hard, impatient voice. “You may go upstairs and wait for me there. I have things to say to you, things that are not for the servants to hear or know about.”

  Ys paused at the foot of the oak staircase. For a moment, she considered what it might cost her if she refused. But then she shrugged. Whatever it was that Madame had to say, there was no point in putting it off. Without a word, she turned on her heel, set one small foot on the first step, and then headed slowly up the stairs.

  21

  Ys had taken a seat by one of the diamond-paned casement windows in her little sitting room. She had picked up a book and was leafing through the pages, when the door flew open, and in came Madame Solange in a typical rush, followed a moment later by the small plump figure of Aunt Sophie.

  “No, keep your seat,” Madame said sharply, as the girl made to rise. “Remember who you are, what you are destined to become.”

  Remembering exactly who she was, Ys rose defiantly to her feet. But then—finding Madame’s indignant gaze too much to bear—she merely put down the book and changed her place by the window for a chair on the other side of the room.

  Madame’s chest heaved inside her burgundy velvet gown; her eyes burned. Like Ys, she was dressed in accordance with her new rôle; strings of pearls were twined in her rich dark hair; the long bodice of her wine-colored gown was trimmed with yards of gold galloon. “You are a very wicked and willful—” she was beginning, when Sophie interrupted her.

  “Val, dear, you can’t command her to remember her dignity in one breath, and then scold her like a naughty little girl in the next. And really, you know, she does it all very well. You have been with her from the very beginning, have seen her change so gradually—I daresay you are hardly aware that she has changed. But I can’t tell you how impressed I was when I arrived two days ago.” Sophie smiled her gentle, conciliating smile. “Impressed by what you, more than anyone, have accomplished here. She looks every inch the Queen of Winterscar and she has so many pretty airs and graces—”

  “Unfortunately,” said Madame Solange, between her teeth, “the King of Winterscar does not appear to think so. Two long months ago, Sophie, he all but pledged to marry her, right here in this very room, yet still the arrangement remains a secret one. I begin to fear that he has no intention of marrying her at all.”

  Madame moved about the room with her usual impatient step, and (also as usual) the room with its vaulted ceiling and high casements, the entire house with its dozens of rooms and passageways, seemed scarcely adequate to contain her energy. “This girl’s failure to secure her position is all the more pitiable, because there is no other female claiming his attention.”

  “But I do have a rival,” Ys protested. She struck what she thought was a demure pose, hands folded, eyes lowered, but her voice was dripping with spite. “The peerless Zelene, so perfect, so flawless, so pure—I can’t begin to tell you how difficult it is measuring up to a dead woman.”

  Madame regarded her with unconcealed contempt. “I might believe you were at some disadvantage, were you not in possession of your mother’s necklace. Surely that is an advantage that no other woman, living or dead, can hope to match. Though I must say,” she added with a cruel smile, “you have been very clumsy in the way that you use it!”

  Instinctively, Ys put her hand to her throat, where the double string of stones rested. Even when they were not there, when she was in her bath, or when she took them off before going to bed at night, she could still feel their ominous weight pressing against her flesh. And she was learning to hate the necklace, which more and more seemed to her a poisonous thing, a deadly thing that it was dangerous even to use.

  “Until now, you have only been able to arouse and intrigue him, to mesmerize and bedaze his mind. But that’s not enough. You are attracting and repulsing him at the same time, which means that your spell remains imperfect. It wouldn’t be necessary to blind him with headaches or play tricks with his memory, if your hold on him was complete.”

  “Now Valentine,” said Aunt Sophie, taking one thin, nervous hand between both of hers, speaking in her most soothing voice, “she is still very young. Ys has nothing to match Chimena’s experience.”

  Madame suffered her touch with uncharacteristic patience—though her nostrils flared, and her free hand clenched, and opened, and closed tight again. “Experience means very little. Chimena knew how to do these things instinctively. It almost seemed that the necklace was made for her and she was made for the necklace. Ys is Chimena’s daughter, and if she is not so apt for these things as Chimena was, there should still be enough of the mother in the child to teach her the proper use of the stones.”

  With a sudden movement, Madame waved Sophie away and rounded on Ys with a glance of concentrated venom. “This girl knows very well there is only one way to make Jarred of Winterscar utterly her slave. She must take him into bed with her, demonstrate some of the darker pleasures the necklace can offer—no, Ys, spare me your blushes. You are not the innocent you were three months ago. At least—not if you have been doing your duty with that boy who just left,
and with the others.”

  Ys sat frowning down at her tiny feet, so that no one could see the burning color rise up in her face. “I have been doing—what is required—with Zmaj.”

  “But not with Jmel? Not with Izek?”

  “I have been doing what is required.” Ys raised her head with a flash of defiance that ignited and died before the sentence was finished. “Why should it matter which one I have chosen to father my child?”

  “It matters,” said Madame. Her handsome face had grown harder with the years, the dark eyes brighter, the red lips thinner. It often seemed that her brittle control over her outsize emotions must snap at any moment, but it never had.

  “You are not to single out any one of those boys. To do so would give him an inflated idea of his own importance. When you conceive, I want no one to know which one of the three is really responsible.”

  Madame began to pace as she spoke. The high heels of her satin slippers made sharp little sounds as they hit the hardwood floor. “We don’t want any jealous scenes enacted before the king. Which we will have, if Zmaj is encouraged to believe that he has an exclusive claim on you. You don’t know these Maglore youths as I do. With all their posturing, their suicidal passion for duelling—it’s a wonder our race has survived. And there will be no time to waste on placating Zmaj. You must devote yourself to entrapping King Jarred.”

  Her brilliant gaze wandered again to Chimena’s necklace; she lowered her husky voice almost to a whisper. “You must bewitch him—you must seduce him.”

  “But I don’t want to seduce Jarred,” Ys protested. “And why should I? He can’t father my children.”

  “No. But he must believe that he can. He must, when the time is right, believe that he has.”