Lady Krogan had never used this means to communicate with him before, and it had never occurred to him that she could.
Even when the raven had repeated his grandmother’s message two times over, Will was not quite certain what to think of it. Could the words have been garbled along the way? That Lili was for some reason on the trail of the Chaos Machine, he had already guessed. But that she and her Aunt Allora could be Specularii magicians—?
Moving in the varied circles that he did, Will had heard vague rumors of the Specularii: a group of crackpots claiming descent from one of the ancient magical societies, a handful of misguided souls who actually believed that the Maglore were still in existence. How could Lili—his sweet, sensible, level-headed Lili—possibly associate herself with people like that?
When the raven was gone, Will returned to his bed of straw. He sat with his head bowed in thought, trying to make sense of this unexpected information. For some reason, his thoughts kept turning back to what the other raven had said to him on the road to Fencaster. Not if she was a Gobline. If the woman he was following was not an Ouph or a Padfoot, could not be a Wryneck or Grant, yet she was a Gobline, that meant—
Wilrowan felt suddenly dizzy and disoriented, as his whole conception of the world turned upside down and inside out. What if the Specularii were right after all? What if the Maglore did still exist and were behind the plot to steal the Jewels? What if, unknowingly, he had actually been pursuing one of the creatures all of this time?
The answer to that question made him beat his fists in impotent fury against the wall until his knuckles bled. If all this was true, then right at this moment Lili might be in pursuit of the Maglore woman. She and the man she was with might be moving inexorably toward a confrontation with one of the most dangerous and ruthless creatures ever to exist.
And he, Wilrowan, was absolutely helpless to do anything about it, absolutely incapable of coming to her aid, so long as he remained locked up in this cursed cell.
42
Tarnburgh, Winterscar—Three Months Earlier
27 Pluviôse, 6538
It was a respectable house where gentlemen took lodgings, a sedate old house on a quiet street. Ys sat outside in her glass coach, staring at the prim facade and shuttered windows, unable to make up her mind. More and more, she was learning to ignore the conventions, but she was not yet dead to all sense of propriety. Young ladies, even young married ladies, did not visit young men at their rented rooms.
But she had not seen Zmaj in more than ten days; he had not responded to any of her increasingly frantic letters. No one had heard of him leaving the town; no one had spotted him anywhere in Tarnburgh. Ys felt a growing certainty that something dreadful had happened to him.
Coming to a abrupt decision, she left the coach, instructing two of the footmen to follow her inside the house. She had to know the truth, no matter how awful.
Zmaj’s rooms were on the second floor (more shabby-genteel than the first) on a short corridor with a worn carpet and a dingy skylight. Ys hesitated outside his door, then clenched one hand into a hard little fist and knocked softly.
The sound echoed dully in the empty corridor, but there was no response. After a minute, she knocked again, this time with more force. Still no answer, no slightest rumor of movement on the other side. Ys was considering that she might tell her lackeys to break down the door, when she suddenly thought to try the handle.
At her touch, the catch slid aside, and the door swung open on a dark interior. Ys felt a sharp twinge of panic. Surely if Zmaj had taken a trip out of town, he would never have left his door unlocked.
“Stay here,” she ordered the footmen, and with a dry mouth and a leaping pulse, she entered the flat alone.
The sitting room was cold and stale. Feeling her way in the dim light, Ys moved toward the long window and unlatched the shutters. A shaft of golden sunlight pierced the gloom, turned the threadbare carpet the color of blood. Ys looked around her cautiously, but there was nothing amiss—only a room full of cheap old furniture, and a cloud of dust motes spinning in the air.
She moved on to the bedchamber. Again, the room was in perfect order, his bed made up, his clothes stored neatly inside a pine clothes-press, his other things tidied away in drawers. It was only when she approached the fireplace that she cried out.
There was a mound of silvery-grey ashes upon the hearth, spilling over on the crimson carpet. A pile so small, so fine, you would hardly imagine it was all that remained of so tall a youth. But the Maglore burned exceedingly hot, and much was vaporized when they did, including most of their clothing.
Ys dropped to her knees beside the sooty hearth, heedless of the damage to her silken skirts. Her heart beat painfully hard against her ribs, the blood roared in her ears. Slowly, she put out a hand to touch the ashes, then drew back with a deep, racking shudder. This was no accident, it had been done deliberately. No suicide, either. Zmaj was far too young, and the usual method was the ingestion of poison or ground glass. It was the usual method of assassination, too—death by fire was far too horrifying for even the most vengeful to contemplate. Ys drew in a long, slow breath in order to steady herself. She knew only one Goblin cruel enough, ruthless enough, to burn another Goblin to death.
Her gaze hardened and her back stiffened; all in an instant, she formed an unshakeable resolution. Madame Solange deserved to suffer for this, and Ys intended to see that she did.
Madame was preparing to go out when Ys walked in. Handsome in midnight velvet and grey squirrel, but restless and discontented as to her expression, there was a familiar dangerous gleam in her eye which ought to have warned her former pupil, had Ys not been so far beyond reading the signs.
“How dare you,” said Ys, trembling with the intensity of her indignation. “First Izek and now Zmaj. Who are you to shed such quantities of Imperial Maglore blood?”
“I am the one who has guarded and protected you all of your life. The boy had become a danger to you—in some sense, a danger to every one of us. Particularly after your abominable behavior the night of the Midwinter Ball. I urge you to put aside your childish passion, and for once in your life think.”
Ys stamped one tiny foot. “I won’t think, it makes me sick to think. My head aches when I’m so angry. How could you do this to me? I loved Zmaj, I—”
“Exactly. Your affair with him had gone on too long, was becoming too obvious.” Madame picked up her velvet hat, placed it carefully atop the sleek, dark coils of her hair, and skewered it in place with a long glittering hat-pin. “Besides,” she added with a knowing smile, as she examined the result in a small hand mirror, “he had already served his purpose, hadn’t he?”
Ys drew in her breath sharply, astonished anew by such uncanny omniscience. “You knew that? But I never told anyone; I was hardly sure of it myself. How could you know?”
Her governess shrugged, put aside the mirror. “There are certain signs. Unmistakable to those of us who know them. And when the day finally comes that you announce your condition to the world, there must be no breath of scandal, no slightest suspicion in anyone’s mind that the child you carry is not King Jarred’s. By your own thoughtless behavior, you were the one who forced me to take such drastic measures.”
Ys sat down very suddenly on a chair by the door. Her sense of injury was still very strong, but her anger was ebbing. She was beginning to suspect that Madame was right, that she had brought this grief on herself. “But why did he have to die?” she said softly. “Couldn’t we just send him away?”
“We?” said Madame, spinning around to face her. “But you told me yourself he was yours to command. Had you possessed the good sense to send him away of your own accord, this would not have been necessary. As it was, you left me no choice.” On a table by her elbow, there was a pair of scented gloves; she caught up the right one and pulled it on, then repeated the process with the left. “It is time, Ys, that you accepted responsibility for your own actions. You are, as you recently pointed out, no longer a ch
it in the schoolroom. If you make a threat, no one is going to mistake it for childish bravado—least of all me. You must learn to guard your tongue, to display a little discretion. Otherwise, even I won’t be able to save you.”
Ys put her hands to her head, which was aching intolerably. “You should have explained this to me. Why did you not even try to explain before taking such a drastic step?”
Again came that savage light in Madame’s eyes. “I have always found that an object lesson—be it sufficiently sharp—is far more effective than an explanation. That was the only way with your mother, and I knew from the very beginning it would be the only way with you.”
“But I’m not Chimena,” Ys answered pitifully. “You might have tried to teach me more gently. You might have at least tried.”
The red lips parted in a scornful smile. “You don’t even know what you were when I first took charge of you, do you? You don’t remember—or you won’t remember—what a miserable life you led before I rescued you?”
Ys passed a hand over her eyes. “I have nightmares—sometimes the briefest glimpses of people and places. But no clear memories.”
“Then I think,” said Madame, “it is long past time that you were reminded.”
The houses were old and dilapidated, the streets of Ottarsburg were muddy, dirty, and depressing. The damp was everywhere—as a clammy sweat on all the houses, in filthy puddles down in the streets, in the chests of invalids, in dreary attics and moldy cellars, anywhere and everywhere but where it belonged.
A hackney coach came rattling down a rutted lane and stopped in one of the dismal little squares. Two women, dressed all in black and discreetly veiled, climbed down out of the coach. The taller of the two commanded the driver to wait, as they did not expect to be long about their business.
They walked for two blocks through the mud and filth, holding up their heavy skirts to keep them out of the muck. Then the ground fell away under their feet, and they found they were standing on a high bluff, overlooking a vast network of piers and boardwalks, which stretched as far as the River Scar. A faint breeze from the river bottoms lifted their veils.
They descended a steep flight of stairs to a walkway below, and continued on: past lounging figures of sailors in short woolen jackets and high wooden clogs, past ragged children playing on heaps of garbage, who stopped and stared to see the two strange females go hurrying by. The air was thick with the stench of poverty, fish, and dying river. Finally, Ys and her governess stopped before a ramshackle little building.
When the door of the shop creaked open, when she followed Madame Solange into the sordid interior, Ys was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of despair. She knew this place: these dusty piles of books and papers; these tottering stacks of battered furniture. She knew this sickly odor, rising off heaps of mildewed clothing. It was the stuff of all her nightmares.
A distant bell rang somewhere at the back of the shop. In response, a door creaked open and a stooped figure appeared on the threshold, silhouetted against the pale light of a horn lantern. As he hobbled forward, all of his attention seemed to center on Madame.
“So—you have returned,” said the ancient Wryneck.
“Yes,” said Madame, putting aside her veil with a restless gesture. “Though I must say, I am astonished to find you alive after so many years.”
“I have been somewhat astonished myself. I quite expected that you would have me silenced. I wonder why you did not?”
Madame shrugged, as though the matter were of supreme indifference to her—as very probably it was. “Perhaps I anticipated that this day might come.” She turned toward Ys. “Do you know this place? Do you recognize this Goblin?”
Slowly, reluctantly, Ys raised her veil and gazed wonderingly around her. “I lived here amidst all this filth. And this creature reared me—if you can dignify his negligence by such a name!”
“Then you still don’t remember it all. You were not a child to be reared; you were a wild animal to be broken and tamed. It is often the fate of the orphaned children of Maglore families living in exile. When the parents die, no one is able to teach them, no one knows the way or possesses the necessary strength of will. There have been many such over the years, living on the tolerance of their lesser Goblin neighbors, who are too tender-hearted to have them exterminated. For all that, such children seldom last long. They die as they have lived, like wild beasts.”
Ys covered her eyes with her hands. The memories were coming swiftly now, and there was such an avalanche of them, they threatened to bury her. “No,” she whispered. “No. I was never anything so vile and degraded as that.”
“Ah, but you were,” said Madame, on a note of triumph. “Ragged, filthy, bestial. As you would be still, had it not been for the infinite pains I took over you. Supposing, that is, you had survived at all.”
But Ys continued to shake her head. This humiliation went far too deep, was too unbearable. “No,” she repeated again and again. “I could never have been like that and be what I am now. If that were true, I could never hold up my head again.” With a final despairing gesture, she turned around and fled the building. The door slammed shut behind her.
The crowded little shop was silent for several minutes, until the Wryneck spoke. “So you spared me only for this. She will never allow me to live, knowing that I remember her as she was, knowing I was a witness to her early degradation.”
Madame spent a moment longer looking after Ys with a puzzled frown. But when she turned to face the old Goblin, her brilliant dark eyes were as hard as ever.
“No doubt you are right,” she responded with a shrug. “But after all—you were always expendable.”
43
Omens of spring appeared in the north. As the ice melted and the sun warmed the earth, larches turned a tender green, and purple saxifrage and arctic poppies appeared in the fields. But at Lindenhoff, with the wasting of winter, King Jarred wasted, too. By the time that the larches leafed out, he was unable to rise from his bed. He spent most of his time sleeping; when he was not, he faced a constant parade of doctors.
“His Majesty’s blood is in a constant state of ferment,” said an elderly surgeon. “He wants further cupping.”
“Nonsense,” replied a self-important young physician. “The king’s condition could only be the result of confluent pustules and a consequent putredinous pestilent disposition of the humors. Bee-glue, cat’s-tongue, and laudanum is the only cure.”
“Not so,” insisted a healer-physician from the University of Vallerhoven—who, like most academics, was strong on theory but had little to offer when it came to prescribing a practical course of treatment. “His Majesty suffers from an acid acrimony and a hectic hydropondriachal heat.”
The king suffered them all patiently, allowed them to physick him, sweat him, blister him, bleed him; apply mustard plasters, clysters, leeches, and freshly slaughtered pigeons; give him simples, purgatives, cathartics, and anodynes; dose him with epsom salts, calomel, alkermes and theriac. None of this did him the least bit of good.
But early one morning a new man came in. He was an elderly physician with keen grey eyes and a brisk way about him that made something—some dim sensation of hope perhaps—stir inside Jarred for the first time in weeks. The doctor brought with him a surprising assistant: a roguish old fellow with jet-black hair, a crimson eye-patch, and a jagged white scar that slashed across his cheek under a three days’ growth of rough grey stubble. The two men presented such a remarkable contrast between them—the trim physician and his disreputable-looking assistant—that Jarred smiled faintly in spite of himself.
At a word from the doctor, the servants filed out of the room. Approaching the bed, he took the king’s wrist between his thumb and two fingers. Inside the frilled linen cuff of his nightshirt, Jarred’s flesh was shrunken, the bones seemed as brittle and the skin as fragile as that of a child. “The pulse is very weak, but it is steady. I do not think he will be harmed by a little wholesome excitement—indeed, i
t may do him a great deal of good.”
The physician stepped back from his place by the bed, to be replaced by his colorful assistant. “Your Majesty, do you know me?”
For a moment, Jarred failed to understand him. Then he became aware of several things almost at once: The black hair was a wig; the scar was too spectacularly vivid to be true; he had heard this voice before, a thousand times.
“Francis?” he said weakly. Then, with a marked increase in volume as the full improbability of the situation struck him: “Francis?”
“Yes, sir, it is I. Your old tutor, your second father,” said the old man, with an emotional quiver in his voice as he lifted the gaudy crimson eye-patch and cast it aside. “I have been forbidden to approach you, but they could not keep me away, not while you remain so very, very ill. My good cousin here came to my aid and smuggled me in to see you.”
The faint smile turned into a full-fledged grin. “My dear friend, I can hardly say how glad I am to see you. But in such—such a ridiculous disguise! What were you thinking?”
The philosopher smiled, too, though somewhat shakily. “That no one would suspect staid old Doctor Purcell of such a bizarre deception. That no one would imagine for one moment that the doddering old fellow with his clocks and his tiny machines had enough dash or sense of romance to appear before his king in this flamboyant fashion. And as you can see, I was perfectly correct.”
The king closed his eyes; for just a moment, this was all too much for him. “I don’t understand. That is, I understand why you left the palace—but how were you forbidden to even visit? I gave no such order.”
“It was the queen,” said Purcell. “Your Majesty, have you no suspicion of her yourself?” Jarred’s eyes flickered open, but he gave no other response. “Shortly after I left Lindenhoff, I discovered that she was the one who had arranged to publish my papers. You know, of course, what havoc she has created with the palace staff. One would expect a few such changes—she would naturally wish to advance people of her own—but she appears to be systematically isolating you from everyone that you ought to be able to trust. Under the circumstances, I cannot help thinking she must be responsible for this sickness as well.”
The Queen's Necklace Page 45
