Scrivener's Tale (47 page)

‘And beyond,' she qualified, ‘toward the Wild.' There was a message there; he sensed it, even though her words were spoken casually enough. ‘I and my donkey cart will take the most direct route.' She smiled.

People were running past them now and the tension was palpable. Much as he wanted to question her more, it was inappropriate. Besides, he needed to reassure Florentyna.

‘Thank you, Tilda.'

‘Learn from your experience,' she added as she turned, echoing her previous caution.

A wide-eyed serving girl darted by. She was a pretty young thing who was so startled by all the sudden and early activity that she still hadn't taken the rags out of her curls. Stoneheart was in panic.

As he moved through the palace, retracing his steps, he gathered that more and more people were being found dead at their station or in the immediate surrounding fields. It seemed to him that the majority of victims were outside Stoneheart's walls though, and perhaps that was a clue. He hoped he was right.

Cassien took the stairs two at a time and when he arrived back at their shared room, Ham was waiting for him, his expression solemn, direct.

‘It was you, wasn't it?'

Cassien glared at him. ‘Whatever makes you say that? Tilda has no —'

‘It wasn't Tilda. It was the sword. It knew.'

Cassien took a slow breath. ‘What?'

‘It woke me. It seemed to call, although to explain it that way seems too simple.'

‘What did it want you for?' Cassien said, forcing himself not to grab Ham and shake the answer from him.

‘To be close.'

He swallowed. ‘What do you mean?'

Ham shrugged. ‘I don't know what I mean. And the wolf said I had to keep you safe.'

‘The wolf?'

‘I think I dreamed her …'

Her. Romaine!

‘… but even so,' Ham continued, ‘I obeyed her.'

‘And what did the wolf tell you?'

‘She simply said I must watch over you. Let no-one interfere as you —'

‘As I what?'

‘Roamed,' Ham finished awkwardly, with a worried gaze.

Cassien had closed his eyes.

‘So it was you?' Ham asked again.

He nodded, hanging his head. ‘Yes. In the past it has damaged me, and initially caused the death of animals. I had no idea it was powerful enough to kill on this scale.'

Ham gave a shrug. ‘Now you do.' He said no more about it.

They parted and Cassien went in search of the queen, found her dressed and with a mix of frustrated concern in her expression. ‘There you are.'

‘Forgive me,' he said bowing and, as he pulled up to attention, realised he was now in her bedchamber. He turned away.

Florentyna didn't seem to care. ‘This is no time for modesty, Cassien. I really thought I'd lost you too, the way you were sickening.'

‘No, majesty,' he said over his shoulder, ‘I believe I ate something that disagreed with me.'

She let it go. ‘What is happening?' she exclaimed, turning on her heel. ‘Can someone explain it? And where is Burrage?'

‘He must be busy with all the problems, majesty,' her maid said.

‘Thank you, Sharley. Leave it, it's fine,' she said, as the girl reached to tidy her hair. ‘Today is not a day to be worrying about how I look.' The maid curtsied and left. ‘What in Shar's name is happening?' she asked again.

‘Perhaps the physics can tell us if it's a case of poisoning or …' He didn't know what to say.

‘My sister is fine. I've had word back. So is Tamas, thank Shar!'

If only she knew the relief flooding his body at her reassurance.

‘And you are safe, majesty.'

‘Well, I'm not staying here, Cassien. Come on, I have to do my best to relieve the confusion.' She strode out of her rooms and guards snapped to attention, ready to follow her. Cassien held up a hand to tell them to wait there, that he could handle her safety for now.

Darcelle met them at the stairs, ignoring his bow and launched straight into her private complaint.

‘Florentyna, please don't tell me we have to cancel the festivities.' She must have realised how callous she sounded, particularly as she had been so grief-stricken the previous evening. ‘I mean,' she hesitated, ‘I'm having to be strong over my loss, but for the sake of Tamas and what we're trying to achieve between our realms it's important we don't let the problems of Morgravia spill over into his visit. You do agree, surely?'

Florentyna took a breath. ‘Darcelle, people have mysteriously died through the night … .'

‘None of them important,' Darcelle countered, censuring herself when her sister gasped. ‘That came out wrong. I mean none are important to the future of Morgravia's critical relationship with Cipres. I want you to keep your promise. We have to put on the right face. No-one needs to know, not even Tamas.'

‘You don't think word will get out?'

‘We can contain it. Just for as long as he's here.' She grabbed Florentyna's hands. ‘Let me marry him now.'

‘What?'

‘Let's turn his visit into wedding celebrations. The sooner it happens, the better.'

‘Darcelle —' Florentyna began.

‘I know you think I'm young and impetuous and no doubt that's how you'll always see me! The fact is, I'm going to be married whether it's this blossomtide or next. I won't change my mind either. We have a king in our midst as keen to marry me as I him and in doing so we will bind our realms. Why wait?' She searched her sister's face. ‘This is something our father wanted.'

‘I can't agree to this,' Florentyna replied, despite her sister's pleading. ‘I'm sorry but —'

The princess rounded on her. ‘This is all about jealousy, Florentyna. Are you so warped by your own loneliness that you can't let me have my happiness? Just because no-one wants to become your king shouldn't mean that I can't have mine.'

Cassien watched the queen's face cloud. A storm was gathering within. He wondered whether to distract the two women, but Florentyna spoke before he could act.

‘I don't need a king to be queen … or are you forgetting that?' Florentyna's tone cut sharply. ‘You really are the most self-centred brat. You shame the Dragon throne.' Darcelle's eyes had narrowed to slits, but Florentyna hadn't finished. ‘I have no doubt that marriage, and the plans you've so ably made, are taking an emotional as much as physical toll, but affairs of the state do not play second fiddle to your personal ups and downs. Our private sorrow aside, people have dropped dead around us. And while I agree that we will contain this information as best we can within Stoneheart, you should be as concerned as I am about the need to comfort and reassure our staff. That's our job.

‘Darcelle,' she said, her voice dropping lower, becoming more intense, ‘the Crown is not a right without cost. Everything in life has a price, little sister, and your fancy silks, the cringing courtiers, the wealth, the status, the power you wield, has a price of duty.' She stood tall over Darcelle as she took a step closer. ‘And now you must pay it.' Cassien held his breath. For all her reticence, Florentyna had spine and her sense of responsibility to her people was palpable. Darcelle should not have pushed her sister this hard. ‘I am cancelling further festivities. Tamas is welcome to stay on, but there will be no further formal celebration in the immediate future. Is that clear?'

Darcelle's face was colourless save two high spots of bright pink, as though her cheeks had been pinched. ‘So, you'd do anything to prevent me having the status of queen, because then we'd be equal. That's your nightmare, isn't it Florentyna? The prettier, more talented, more socially adept, more beloved sister on an equal footing … your last little bastion of power removed.'

Florentyna shook her head, barely noticing that Cassien was moving along a pair of serving girls who were staring at the arguing royals. ‘You really are empty-headed, aren't you, Darcelle? All you want is to use the Crown, to take from it. You disgust me. Go to your rooms or I'll have you taken there and put under guard.'

Darcelle's mouth opened in horror. Fortunately, no sound issued forth.

‘Go!' Florentyna said. ‘I don't think I can bear to look upon you right now. I have dead people in my palace and no explanation.'

‘How I wish you were one of them!' Darcelle snapped and turned on her heel.

Florentyna also turned away, leaned her weight on the banister rail and drew a deep, steadying breath. Cassien felt momentarily helpless. His inclination was to hold her, but he resisted.

‘I've managed to turn the only member of my family left to me entirely against me,' she growled. ‘I know you and Burrage are thinking it — and I'm fighting it — but perhaps Darcelle was behind the attack at Rittylworth. There was real venom in her attack just now. She wishes me dead.'

He could hear how angry she still was and as he reached for the right words to reply a young woman skittered up.

‘Your majesty,' she warbled. He could see she had been crying now and her eyes were still moist and red.

Florentyna straightened, breathing deeply. She turned, composed. ‘Yes?'

‘We've found Chancellor Burrage.'

‘Thank Shar's mercy,' she said, relief obvious in the slump of her shoulders. ‘Now, I can —'

‘He's dead, your majesty,' the woman cut across the queen's words, forgetting herself.

Florentyna sucked in a breath and this time Cassien did step forward with helping hand.

‘Are you sure?' he demanded of the servant.

‘His body is already stiffening,' she said.

Her words brought a fresh gasp from Florentyna. ‘This can't be happening. I must see for myself.'

Before he could stop her, the queen was running.

King Tamas frowned. He had been given a suite of chambers in one of the wings of Stoneheart that clustered around a charming courtyard dedicated to herbs. From where he was now sitting, it looked to him like a work of art, a living sculpture in green. He was enchanted by the well-tended and clearly constantly replenished garden, for even the hedrill looked young, with tender leaves. At home the hedrill in the kitchen herb gardens turned woody within a season.

He found it intriguing that this palace, known for its imposing mass and dull, dark stone, was innately feminine at its heart. It was a lovely discovery, given that his own capital was pale and beautiful, often compared to a nymph. He was thoroughly enjoying some quiet time, made all the more pleasant by the fact that he had banished the ever-present retinue of servants and counsellors from his side.

So now he sat in the thaw sun of a Morgravian morning and inhaled the scent from the herbs; together they formed a new fragrance, with wafts of rosemary and shirl twisting around hedrill and thyme, jessamy and mint. He looked at the small posy of colourful flowers he'd picked and wondered why herbs were not used more often in the more lavish floral displays around Cipres.

He'd grown up learning about herbs and food, having spent a lot of his days lurking around the Ciprean palace kitchens. His closest friend in those childhood years had been Lacey, one of the scullery maids, so pretty she made most others appear dull. And despite her natural radiance she seemed to possess a limitless grasp on all things practical and worldly — from finding herbs in the garden to knowing how to bring out a bruise quickly. Lacey could run as fast as Tamas, sling a punch as quickly and take a black eye without more than a whimper. Whenever he could slip away from weapons and fighting drills, or horse training, or the dreaded academic studies, they were together. She was the first girl to kiss him and the last one he had truly loved. At ten summers his parents had thought it time he leave behind his childhood friends, especially those not of the same social standing, and he was removed to live in Tallinor.

When he returned fourteen moons later, Lacey was gone from the palace and he had no doubt his mother had made sure it happened. His father expected him to make his own way while he, something of an adventurer and learned man, travelled constantly on long voyages, leaving much of the raising of the three boys to their mother. The queen was a powerful figure, possessing a drive and ambition that their quieter father fed off. His mother essentially ran the realm while the king disappeared on his adventures. One couldn't criticise the king too loudly, since his travels yielded advances in so many areas of knowledge that Cipres, despite its size, seemed to be at the forefront of everything from farming methods to education, as well as creating new industries in varied fields such as perfume and fruit preserving; and in developing its famed blue paint, toolook — with a lustre like no other — and also a pure and iridescent green known as ferge. These became so eye-poppingly expensive that the Crown had to take control of production as people killed each other for the right to collect the raw material.

And then the plague had come. It was believed to have arrived with the flotilla of ships that had sailed his father back to Cipres in Tamas's eighteenth summer. The king's gift to Cipres included far more than the silver pearls, a raft of new medicines and a beverage called dinch.

None of the medicines he'd acquired could touch the disease, which had travelled with the insects that made their way off the ship on the backs of the rats they infested, as well as in the hair and beards of the men who then carried them into homes, taverns, even the palace.

People had begun to die at a chaotic, tragic rate. Each day yielded a hundred more corpses. Royalty was not immune. The ‘Venturer' plague, as it became known, claimed the lives of his mother and both brothers; he was spared, although he never understood why.

His sensitive father had died not long after from what was officially recorded as a fall. Tamas suspected, however, that King Wurt could not bear the guilt and had thrown himself from the cliffs.