Agent of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “I’m afraid I’m a bit single-minded in my interests,” Alison said, “but it’s such a joy, matching people with books they didn’t even know they needed.”

  “You don’t mind if I spend all night in the workshop again, do you?” Telaine said, teasing Ben, who put his arm around her waist and pulled her close for a kiss. “Well, all right then,” she said, breathlessly.

  “Pa, sing for us,” Julia said. She climbed onto her father’s lap and turned the pages of his book.

  “One of these?” Ben said. “I think I need some practice.” But his hand stilled hers, and he ran his finger down the staves of music on one of the pages. “Or…happen not.”

  They settled in around the fireplace while Ben stood before them, moving his lips as he ran through the words of the song. “Good thing for me my voice has changed some since I was young,” he said. “More a baritone than a tenor, these days.”

  “Still the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard,” Telaine said.

  “Zara’s going to follow his example, you know,” Anthony said. “She’s only five and you can hear it in her voice.”

  Alison said nothing, just watched Ben as his stance shifted and he began breathing rhythmically. Did Telaine know her husband was a classically trained opera singer? He’d never given any hint of being more than just a man with a gift for music and a love of folk songs. But Alison had attended many concerts in her day, most of them against her will, and in her boredom with the music had turned her attention to the singers, observing how they stood, how they moved, the way they held their chests and throats and lips. Ben Garrett might not have taken up the profession, but it wasn’t for lack of either talent or training. Well, if Telaine wasn’t interested in ferreting out her husband’s secrets, it wasn’t any business of Alison North’s.

  “I’ve heard this song before, but it never had words, not that I knew anyway. It’s an old lullaby that’s supposed to come from the time of Haran, back when we still worshiped gods,” Ben said. “The words are in—is this Kantnish?”

  Alison took the book from him. “An old dialect of it. I can’t read it.”

  “Well, whoever wrote it down translated it into something we can understand. Couldn’t sing it else.” He closed his eyes, took in a slow breath, then held the book where he could easily read from it, and sang.

  Now the day is over,

  The sun, it dips into the sea.

  It burns a path along the waves

  That bring you back to me.

  The stars will be your blanket,

  The moon will paint the grasses blue,

  The night will be your guardian

  ‘Til I come home to you.

  Then rest you on your pillow

  Within your cradle, slumber deep.

  I’ll watch o’er you ‘til morning comes

  As peacefully you sleep.

  The last notes of the song floated away, leaving silence behind. Ben lowered the book. “I liked it,” Julia said.

  “That was beautiful. You can tell it’s an old melody, can’t you?” said Telaine.

  “Don’t know how good a translation it is, but it feels sad.” Ben held the book so little Zara could look at it. “Thanks, Milady Alison.”

  “I knew you were the right one for it.” She tried to hold back a yawn. “Excuse me. I’m more tired than I thought.”

  “You should sleep,” Telaine said. “And tomorrow I want to show you everything. The lake is so beautiful this time of year.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing it. Goodnight, children.”

  She hugged them all, then walked the short distance to Zara’s house with her sister. Sunset came early in the mountains, and the snows on the top of Mount Ehuren were tinged faintly pink from the rays of a sun that had already dipped beyond the western peaks. To the east, stars glittered against the indigo sky, more than anyone could see in Aurilien, which glowed in the light of a million Devices every night. “How much longer will you stay here?” she asked.

  Zara didn’t respond. She stayed silent until they reached her back door and entered the kitchen. “Until the first snows fall. Can’t afford to stay longer. Been here too long as it is.”

  “I can see why you wouldn’t want to leave.”

  “Never hated this magic so much as I have these last two years. I almost wish she’d never come here. It hurts like hell, leaving ‘em all behind, but…” She reached into a cupboard and took out a bottle of wine. “I say we get drunk and tell old stories. If my heart’s goin’ to break, I want it to break in company.”

  She lit a dozen candles and they sat at the kitchen table, talking and laughing and even crying, but just a little. “Doyle never gave away the secret,” Alison said. “I miss him sometimes—he died about twenty-five years ago, probably from all the drinking. I thought he’d outlive me.” She took a swallow of wine. “I thought a lot of people would outlive me.”

  “I wish I’d been there for you when Anthony died.”

  “It was horrible. Waking up to that, him lying there so…it’s still hard to remember. It was a long time before I could think of him without crying.”

  “I never wanted to hurt you, love,” Anthony said.

  “I know,” said Alison.

  “Know what?” Zara said.

  “It’s nothing.” Alison yawned again. “I think I’m ready for sleep now.”

  They climbed the stairs together, and at the top, Zara embraced her. “I’m glad you came,” she said.

  “So am I,” Alison said. “Good night, Zara.”

  Alison sat on the bed in her nightgown, watching the stars. The stars will be my blanket, she thought. Would it be a warm blanket, or a cool one? How would it feel to be decked in those lights, wrapped in them so you took their brilliance with you wherever you went? She leaned out of the window and looked up the street to where lights still burned in the house by the forge. Did they still look up in wonder, or was all this beauty just a commonplace for them?

  The sky was growing darker; there was no moon to ruin the brilliance of all those twinkling diamonds. It felt as if heaven were drawing closer, though no one knew what it looked like or where it was, just that it was bound to earth by the lines of power and populated by the dead. When she was a young child, she’d seen her grandfather’s body before his burial, and for months afterward she’d pictured heaven as full of motionless gray people. Now the idea of heaven held no fear for her.

  She lay back in the bed and closed her eyes. It was a good mattress, nearly as good as her bed at home, but she hadn’t slept well for weeks. Possibly it was something that happened as you got old, needing less sleep. Some nights, she sat up reading, or walked through the Library tidying up, but mostly she lay awake in her bed feeling guilty that she couldn’t sleep like a normal person.

  The wine was relaxing her body but not her mind, which went around in fuzzy circles touching on half a dozen things she had to do when she returned. Possibly it was time for her to resign as Royal Librarian, spend more time with her family, but that would only give her fewer things to fill her nights with. And her body might have slowed down, but her mind was as sharp as ever, thank heaven.

  Her circling brain began to slow as she drifted closer to sleep. The faint scent of pine tickled her nose. Maybe she should close the window, but it smelled so good, and the coolness of the air relaxed her further. Finally, she thought, and slept.

  It felt as if she’d only slept for minutes when something woke her, a sound she couldn’t remember upon waking. She knew immediately she wouldn’t be sleeping again anytime soon, cursed under her breath, and sat up. There was no point lying there staring at the ceiling, so she dressed and went carefully down the stairs, not wanting to light a lamp and possibly wake Zara, hoping she wouldn’t trip and fall and break her damned hip again. Bright moonlight came through the kitchen window, enough to help her avoid the table and its single chair. Oh, Zara. How lonely you must be.

  She stepped out into the back yard, which look
ed pale and barren despite the new growth of spring sprouting around the edges of the sheds. The high creaking sound of she had no idea how many crickets filled the air, an invisible choir singing a series of notes all in the same key. A breeze brushed her face, bringing with it the now-familiar scent of pine and the unexpected smell of water. There was a lake, or a river, somewhere around here, and she wanted to see it.

  It wasn’t hard to find the road that led westward out of Longbourne toward the smell of water, but the road tapered off as it entered the forest of evergreens and then vanished, and Alison stood at its end and contemplated the woods. She ought to go back, but for what? More hours lying awake in Zara’s spare room? And it wasn’t as if she could get very lost out here. She left the road and continued walking, following her nose. A tune came to mind, and she hummed along, though she couldn’t remember the words. It was beautiful, and fitted the night perfectly.

  It was much darker beneath the trees, dark enough that she had to feel her way between the trunks. It took only a few minutes for her to realize this had been a bad decision. She stopped with her hand on the rough bark of a pine tree whose branches brushed the top of her head and thought about turning around. No, you’ll just get confused and end up wandering these woods until morning. At least if you move forward you’ll end up lost somewhere interesting. That didn’t make much sense, but the idea of finding the river, or the lake, had taken hold of her, and she knew she was looking for an excuse to keep going.

  Feeling her way, conscious of the dangers of falling and injuring herself here in the dark, she kept moving. The cool, damp breeze came to her now and again, leading her in what she hoped was the right direction. With every step, that hope turned into something more certain, until she was walking quickly, knowing her path as surely as if it were picked out by bright daylight. She breathed deeply and let the smell of clear water fill her lungs. She was nearly there, she could feel it.

  She came out of the woods so abruptly she almost fell over, having anticipated more trees where there were none. And there, spread out before her, was a vast black lake that glittered under the moonlight with hundreds, no, thousands of tiny waves stirred up by the breeze. Short grass covered the ground between her and the shoreline, which was shrouded in rushes that remained still despite the wind.

  The smell of water filled the air, but now it was mingled with the green scents of growing things that surrounded the lake, hidden by the rushes. The sound of crickets was quieter here, she didn’t know why, and the low bass rumble of bullfrogs joined the choir. It was so beautiful it made her heart ache. She felt as if she could hear the tune now, as if it wound itself around the high thin creak of the crickets and the deep, echoing beat of the frogs. It was so familiar, and yet she still couldn’t remember where she’d heard it.

  Movement off to the right drew her eye. Someone stood about a hundred feet away, near the shore, someone who wasn’t more than a black smudge in the moonlight. He, or she, stood almost motionless, and for a moment Alison thought it must be a stub of a tree trunk, burned and broken—but no, it was definitely a human figure, and although Alison couldn’t make out a face, she was certain the person wasn’t looking at the lake, but at her.

  The whole scene seemed odd somehow—surely the moonlight should light up the person’s features?—but then this whole night had taken on a surreal quality. What had possessed her, and it did feel like possession, to leave her bed and go wandering in a strange land at what must be nearly midnight? She must be more drunk than she imagined.

  She began walking toward the figure. Part of her considered that it might be dangerous, that whoever it was might not be friendly, but she was eighty-three years old and death no longer frightened her, if it ever had. And perhaps this person had been drawn to the lake the way she had, and maybe knew something about what that impulse was, and why it had taken hold of her.

  The person didn’t move as Alison approached, though she was still convinced that he—she was close enough now to see it was male—was watching her closely. She was also, irrationally, convinced she knew him, though the only man she knew in Longbourne was Ben and he wouldn’t stand there silently waiting for her to reach him.

  She couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see his face clearly. It was as if the moon was moving to put him in shadow, trying to deceive her. It made her angry, though she knew it was ridiculous to be angry with the moon. So she turned her anger outward, toward the silent man. “Who are you?” she said.

  In response, he whistled a phrase of the tune. “Who do you think I am?” His voice was unfamiliar.

  “I have no idea. Why did you come here?”

  “Who do you think I am?”

  Alison’s temper flared. “I can’t even see your face. If the moon—”

  She stopped. There hadn’t been a moon before, just the starry blanket over Longbourne. And this moon was too bright, too large, and it lit everything except the stranger’s face. Alison looked back toward the woods. Nothing of Longbourne was visible, but she was absolutely certain that if she were to retrace her steps, she’d never find Longbourne again. “Show me your face,” she said.

  The man turned, and in that moment she knew who he was, and before he could do more than say her name she flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and sobbing, “Anthony, Anthony, I didn’t know!”

  His arms, those familiar arms, went around her waist, and then his lips were on hers with a passion she had never forgotten, gentle and insistent and offering her his whole heart if she’d only do the same. She smelled the spicy scent of his cologne and felt the faint roughness of his cheeks, and her forty years of loneliness vanished, swallowed up by the lake.

  Anthony brushed tears from her eyes, kissed her forehead, then drew her into his embrace while she cried, not knowing whether she was happy or confused or grieving all over again. “It’s forever now, love,” he whispered to her. “Forever, and past forever.”

  “Were you speaking to me, these last weeks? Was that real?”

  “No. But it is now.”

  “I woke up that morning, and you were lying there—”

  “I know. I’m sorry you had to endure that. It hurt so much knowing you were suffering and I couldn’t comfort you.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. You won’t leave me again?”

  “Never.”

  She heard the music again, and this time it made sense: the old lullaby Ben had sung, now filling her with joy instead of sadness. “Is this why I came to Longbourne? To make one last goodbye?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a lot about this place no one understands. Like why earth is as invisible to us as heaven is to them. Or what we leave heaven for, when it’s time. We only know there’s no more pain, no more sorrow, just ourselves and our loved ones until we, too, pass beyond. Together this time.”

  She stepped away and clasped Anthony’s hand, and saw instead of the wrinkled, blue-veined, age-spotted claw she was used to, firm, smooth skin. He, too, was young, as young as he’d been when they first met. It pained her a little that he wasn’t the forty-five-year-old man whose memory she’d carried all these years, but she’d have been just as happy if they’d both been eighty. “When does that happen?”

  He shrugged. “When it’s time. Whenever that is. When we decide.” He tugged on her hand. “Come with me. There are so many people who want to see you.”

  “Just a minute.” She turned to face where Longbourne would be, on earth, and took in a deep breath of green-scented air. “You won’t hear this,” she said quietly, “but it has to be said. You won’t be lonely forever, Zara. And we’ll wait for you. However long it takes.”

  Her words floated away into the distance, and the lullaby came back to her, so quiet it was impossible to tell who was singing it, or to whom. Promise, said the wind, and Alison held Anthony’s hand and let it follow her all the way to the mountains and beyond.

  About the Author

  Melissa McShane is the author of the nove
ls of Tremontane, including SERVANT OF THE CROWN and RIDER OF THE CROWN, as well as EMISSARY and THE SMOKE-SCENTED GIRL. After a childhood spent roaming the United States, she settled in Utah with her husband, four children, three very needy cats, and a library that continues to grow out of control. She wrote reviews and critical essays for many years before turning to fiction, which is much more fun than anyone ought to be allowed to have. She is currently working on the next Tremontane novel. You can visit her at her website www.melissamcshanewrites.com for more information on other books and upcoming releases.

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  Cover design by Yocla Designs

  North sign and shield designed by Erin Dinnell Bjorn

  Ben’s song appears courtesy of Jacob Proffitt

  To my parents—

  In thanks for always providing me with a library

  and the books to go on its shelves