Agent of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  Aunt Weaver grunted again. “Seemed the best way to handle it. Other options were more complicated.”

  “Yes, I suppose telling everyone you knew I wasn’t your niece would have made them ask why I’d come to stay with you in the first place. And you couldn’t say you were related to my royal mother.”

  “Right.” They fell silent. The clack of the arms and the gentler thump of the treadles filled the place where their conversation had been.

  “Happen I told you once about my havin’ to move around,” Aunt Weaver said abruptly.

  Telaine nodded. “I remember.”

  “Told you I moved about every ten years.”

  “Yes.”

  “That I’d been here going on seven years. Almost eight, now.”

  “I know.”

  Aunt Weaver pursed her lips. “Thought maybe it was time for a change. I could probably stay another ten years before people notice I’m not aging. Longbourne’s not a bad place to live.”

  “Not a bad place to raise a family,” Telaine said.

  “That too.” She stopped the loom and looked at Telaine with those sharp blue eyes. “Happen you’ll come by some days, say hello.”

  “Happen I will,” Telaine said.

  The corners of Zara North’s mouth curled up, ever so slightly, in a smile.

  Read on for a bonus short story—

  “Night Be My Guardian”

  Night Be My Guardian

  The clear spring air carried with it a thousand beautiful smells, pine and flowers and the distant scent of a mountain river. Alison heard it at the edge of her perception, a murmur like that of a palace ball. She closed her eyes and pictured it, the Spring Gala with all those men in pale suits and cravats matching the pastel blues and pinks and yellows of the women’s gowns.

  How fashion had changed in sixty years. Now they wore thin muslins and laces with puffy short sleeves and low necklines over silk or satin slips with narrow skirts. They’d put so many dances out of style, some of them her old favorites—but then it had been her doing that the corset had gone out of fashion, so she could hardly complain.

  “You were always so beautiful, no matter what you wore,” Anthony said. She could imagine his breath tickling her ear, hear his marvelous baritone smooth and warm like melted toffee.

  “I still prefer trousers to gowns,” she whispered back to him. No sense startling the driver, who probably needed all her attention to keep the carriage on the narrow mountain path.

  “Even more beautiful with your dress off,” he teased, and she smiled at the old joke and wished she could lay her head on his shoulder—but of course, he wasn’t there, he was a memory, and a beloved one. She could hear his voice more clearly every day.

  “I don’t mean this as impatience, but do you know how much longer until we’re there?” she asked the driver.

  “I think it’s another half-hour until the valley, milady Consort,” the woman said, “and the man at the stables said it was another half-hour from there to Longbourne. Are you comfortable?”

  “As comfortable as these old bones can be,” Alison said. Her voice was so creaky these days, like the rest of her. She’d turned eighty-three six weeks before and considered herself fairly hale for such an old woman, even if her joints creaked as much as her voice did and her formerly smooth skin was dry and wrinkled as old paper.

  Jeffrey had been horrified when she proposed this trip, but he of all people knew why she had to make it. “I’m surprised you didn’t do this earlier,” he’d said, “fifteen years ago.”

  “Fifteen years ago my granddaughter didn’t give me an excellent excuse for the trip,” she’d replied, “and I’ve kept this secret too long to risk revealing it, even now. The Norths are strong, but no sense stirring up scandal.”

  He’d shaken his head, but hadn’t argued further. Imogen had been more aghast even than her husband, and Alison wondered if she suspected there was more to this trip than the desire to see Telaine and her family in their own home. But she was still Alison North, with a will of iron and the determination to see things through, and now here she was bouncing up the pass toward Steepridge.

  It was actually a fairly comfortable ride, less jolting than the Device Jeffrey had imported from Eskandel that drove you around the city without horses. It was a novelty, a child’s toy, but Alison had observed how easily it handled, how it didn’t leave piles of dung wherever it passed, and predicted Tremontane was seeing the birth of a Devisery that would change it forever.

  “We’ve seen so many changes,” Anthony said. “I wonder what changes our children will see.”

  “What changes they’ll make,” she said quietly. “Telaine has already made a name for herself, even in her little village. When she gets her hands on that Devisery…imagine this trip made twice as fast. She already keeps the passes clear in winter.”

  “I’ve seen them all through your eyes. They’re quite the legacy.”

  “Yours and mine.”

  She napped in the spring sunshine and woke when the carriage’s pace changed, became less bumpy and faster, and sat up to look around her. Now she understood what Telaine had fallen in love with. If she’d come here fifteen years ago, she might have stayed herself. Green grass stretched out in both directions, coming up against the darker green of evergreens in one direction and the silvery coins of aspens in the other.

  The sound of rushing water faded somewhat, but in the far distance she could see a thread of white water spooling down the face of a mountain that still had snow on its peaks. Mount Ehuren was visible beyond that, its darker gray stark against the pale blue sky. The road wound on through the gentle rise of the valley, branching off toward unseen villages elsewhere in the barony. “Stop,” she told the driver. “I want to stretch my legs, then ride on the seat with you.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be comfortable enough, milady Consort?”

  “If I’m not, it will pass, and I want to see Longbourne on my own terms.”

  She needed the driver’s help to emerge from the carriage, tottered around until she had full control of her body, then climbed up onto the seat and held on to its edge as the carriage continued along the road.

  “You might take my arm instead of that splintery seat,” Anthony said. She smiled, but didn’t reply. Ahead, she could see the sun glinting off the blue-gray slates of roofs. Longbourne. It grew up around them, outlying farms becoming houses and then the two-story businesses that lined Longbourne’s main street.

  The horses’ hooves went from thudding on hard-packed earth to ringing out with the same sharp taps they did on the stone-paved streets of Aurilien. Telaine had written with great excitement about the paving of Longbourne’s streets four years ago, how it had replaced the gravel. Alison had tried to imagine the life her oldest granddaughter lived now, she who’d been raised wild and then tamed into a society belle, or so they’d all thought before she was revealed as an agent of the Crown. No wonder she’d thrived here.

  The carriage came to a stop near the forge, where the sound of metal tapping metal and a hot crisp smell of glowing coal said Ben Garrett was at work. The forge was attached to a two-story house, which in turn was attached to a shorter building with large glass windows that would let in enough light for the most precise, finicky work. A couple of men standing at the forge rail turned to look at the newcomer, idly curious. Of course they’d have no idea who she was. The driver helped Alison down. “Where shall I take your bags, milady Consort?”

  “Would you wait for a few minutes?” Alison said. She approached the forge rail, where the two men’s expressions had grown confused, as if they couldn’t believe what they’d heard. She nodded politely to them, leaned on the forge rail, and said, “Might I have a moment of your time, master blacksmith?”

  “Just a—” Ben said, then turned around fast, tongs in hand. “Milady Alison!”

  “Hello, Ben,” Alison said. It had taken most of a year to convince him to stop calling her Milady Consort, as if the
y weren’t related at all. “Surprised?”

  “Of course! Lainie!”

  A small black-haired girl with extraordinary blue eyes that always made Alison catch her breath came running out of the house. “Ma’s in the workshop,” she said in that lilting northeastern accent that sounded like music. Her eyes went round. “Grandmama!” she shrieked, and threw herself at Alison’s legs, making her totter.

  “Zara, be careful,” Ben said. “Go tell your ma who’s here.”

  The little girl ran off. “She’s grown,” Alison said.

  “Going to overtop me and Lainie both someday,” Ben said, pushing his light brown hair from his brow. “No question whose grand-niece she is, either.”

  “It breeds true, the North good looks,” Anthony said. “I wonder if Telaine knew that when she named her.”

  “No question at all,” Alison said.

  The workshop door opened again, and Telaine Garrett came out at a run. “Grandmama,” she said, hugging Alison. “You shouldn’t have come all this way. Was it a comfortable trip? You should bring your things inside, we’ve got room—”

  “Actually, I thought I’d stay with my old friend Agatha Weaver,” Alison said. “She knows I’m coming.”

  Telaine’s eyes went wide. “I can’t believe she kept it a secret from me!” She laughed and shook her head. “All right, actually I can. Of course you would—” She stopped and glanced over her shoulder southward. “Happen you wouldn’t want to come upon her unawares and expect her to put you up. But I think she’d be happy to see you, awares or not.”

  “I hope so,” Alison said. “But I’ll have supper with you, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. Ben’s cooking tonight, so it’ll be edible. Do you—”

  “Yes, I’d like to see Agatha now. Will you show me where she lives?”

  Telaine linked her arm with her grandmother’s and led her down the street, the carriage following slowly behind them. Alison observed her covertly. She’d seen her and, later, her family once a year every year since her marriage, when they came to stay at the palace for a few weeks, but she’d always wondered if Telaine was different when she was at home.

  She sounded different, for one, dropped the cultured accents she always used, probably by habit, in the palace. She’d put on weight since she’d had her three children, which was as well because she’d always been too thin, just like her mother. Her walk was every bit as confident as it ever was, but there was something about it here in Longbourne that was different. It said this was her place, that she was a part of it as if she’d lived here her whole life. It warmed Alison’s heart to see her so happy. If only Julia—but that was a worry for another time, and Alison was about to step into the past.

  Telaine took her around the back of a long, low building that had an upper story half the size of the lower one, with three windows ranged across it. She pushed open the back door without knocking. It opened on a tidy kitchen with a pot of something that smelled delicious bubbling over the fire. In the distance Alison heard clattering and rattling and the faint whir of a spinning wheel. “Aunt Weaver, you have a guest,” Telaine called out, and led Alison out of the kitchen and down a short hall into the great central room of the house.

  A young woman and a slightly younger man sat at spinning wheels; the young man turned to see who’d entered and let go the puffy wool in his hand, which the wheel, spinning on its own, swallowed up. An enormous loom filled the back of the room, clattering away, but its movement slowed and then came to a halt as the woman behind it let her hands and feet fall idle. Alison felt as if she’d sprouted roots that went through the floorboards into the earth and kept her from moving, kept her from falling, as the weaver left the loom and came to greet her.

  Sweet heaven, she looked just the same. Older, maybe—she appeared to be in her mid-thirties—but the eyes, sharp as diamond, the black hair like Anthony’s, the firm chin and the look that said You had better not be wasting my time…how under heaven had she ever fooled anyone into believing she was an ordinary woman?

  Mistress Weaver’s expression was placid, but her voice was sharp as she said, “Maris, Jonathan, you’re excused for the day. I ain’t seen my friend for…a long time, and happen we’ve a lot to talk about.”

  Maris and Jonathan wasted no time in tidying up their work places and running out the front door, shouting happily at their freedom. “Aunt Weaver,” Telaine began, then looked from one face to the other, slipped her arm free of Alison’s, and said, “I’ll see you at supper. You’re invited, Aunt Weaver, if you want.” She left the room, and soon Alison heard the faint sound of the back door shutting.

  Alison looked at Mistress Weaver. “It’s been a long time,” Anthony said.

  “It’s been a long time,” Alison said.

  “Sixty years,” Mistress Weaver said. Her blue eyes glittered. “A lifetime.”

  She blurred in Alison’s vision. “Zara,” Alison said, and went toward her sister, arms outstretched, as Zara did the same, and they clung to each other, weeping, though Alison didn’t know if it was joy or sorrow at how fate had robbed them of those sixty years.

  “You haven’t changed,” Zara said.

  Alison laughed through her tears. “Because I’ve always been wrinkled and white-haired and limped from a broken hip that never healed right?”

  “Your eyes are the same,” Zara said, pulling away to look into those eyes, “and you still walk like you own the world.”

  “Like you’re about to take on the whole damn world at once,” Anthony said in her ear.

  “I never really believed in your inherent magic until now. It’s impossible to comprehend, when the last time I saw you you had most of your face blown away.”

  “By you. Thank you.”

  “I had nightmares about it for weeks. Thank heaven Anthony and I had each other. Was it worth it?”

  Zara’s eyes went distant. Alison wondered what she was seeing. “I imagine sometimes what would have happened if we hadn’t killed me,” she said. “I picture young Jeffrey wasting his life, waiting for me to die. All those children becoming nothing more than hangers-on at court. Telaine never becoming an agent, never finding her heart here.

  “I won’t say it wasn’t hard. But I had love—I doubt I’d have found that if I’d stayed Queen—and I’ve made a life and I even got to see my descendants grow up. Though I thought about murdering Telaine when she gave that child my name. Said ‘I thought she should have a little of my favorite relative’s spunk’ and I near burst into tears right there. Never tell her that.”

  “I wouldn’t. And she does. Have spunk, I mean. She’s the terror of the palace whenever she visits. The only time I see her quiet is when she’s in the Long Gallery looking at her namesake’s portrait. Who knows what she’s thinking?”

  “Probably that her Aunt Weaver looks uncommonly like Queen Zara North,” Anthony said. “She knows it’s time to move on and can’t bear to. But I can hardly blame her for that.”

  “I wish I could have come sooner,” Alison said. “But that was just one more sacrifice.”

  “It was,” Zara said, “but I’m glad you’ve come now. Let’s get your things inside. And then we can talk.”

  ***

  There wasn’t much time before supper to talk. Zara showed her the room she’d be staying in. “Fitted it up with a better mattress,” she said. “Used to be this old, thin thing with hardly any padding to it. Put Telaine on it her first night in Longbourne, see what she’d do. Not a word of complaint. I’d been expecting fancy manners and demands for special treatment.”

  “Even when she was pretending to be a brainless socialite, haughtiness wasn’t part of her character,” said Alison, lowering herself onto the bed. It was soft and welcoming and she thought about pleading tiredness and taking a real nap, but that wasn’t what she was here for. “She’s her father’s daughter, down to the bone. There’s very little of Elspeth in her.”

  “She says it skipped a generation and
appeared in young Julia,” Zara said, leaning against the bedroom wall next to the dressing table and idly running her finger over the mirror’s rim. “The child does take after her great-grandmother, except for the eyes.”

  “Who knows how these things come out in the blood? Owen doesn’t look like any of his maternal relations. Ben’s never said the boy looks like anyone on his side of the family. Though he doesn’t talk about them much.”

  “Doesn’t talk about them at all. He’s hiding something, but Telaine won’t dig for it. Says it’s his business and none of hers.”

  “She seems happy.”

  “She is.” Zara stretched. “I’m going to pull supper off the fire and put it in the cold room. Won’t hurt it to be heated again tomorrow. Then we can see what Ben’s come up with tonight.”

  Alison had to work hard not to be appalled at Telaine’s relatively primitive living conditions. How long had it taken her to adapt to this small house, with its plain furnishings and little rooms and the narrow staircase that led up to where the children slept?

  “You’re a bit of a snob, love,” Anthony said. “Would you have complained at all if I’d asked you to leave the palace and live in the forest with me?”

  She shook her head, then smiled at Ben when he asked if anything was wrong. It was true, she was accustomed to luxury. She watched her granddaughter swipe a cloth across her three-year-old daughter Julia’s face, making the child laugh. It’s not about the furnishings, she told herself, it’s about who shares them with you.

  After supper, she brought out presents: an old book of folk songs for Ben, a newly printed schematic for the Device that propelled Jeffrey’s new toy for Telaine, picture books for Julia and Zara, and a huge encyclopedia of Tremontanan animals for eight-year-old Owen, whose eyes gleamed when he saw it. “You remembered, Grandmama,” he said.

  “Your grandmama has never forgotten anything to do with books in her life,” Telaine said.