The Poisoned Crown (15 page)

“Don’t say that!” The mermaid looked alarmed, glancing quickly from side to side. “The shamans can do that. They put a hex on you, and mutter spells, and wherever you are you hear them, like voices in your mind, and you have to do what they say. If the shamans are after you it’s because they know about us—our friendship and the flying and everything. And if
they
know, then Father knows, and—”

“Don’t panic,” said Ezroc. “It isn’t shamans, I’m sure it isn’t. It’s a thought, not a voice.” In his head Nathan was trying to convey reassurance. “It may be nothing. Anyway, I don’t
think
it’s dangerous, just… strange. Sometimes I remember things—only they’re things I didn’t know.”

“Like what?”

“About Keerye …” He didn’t want to explore the horror of his friend’s death.

“Keerye was fun,” the mermaid said. “I’m sure I would’ve liked him a lot, if I’d had the chance to know him better. Are all selkies like him?”

“No,” said Ezroc. “He was special. There are selkies who hate your people as much as you hate ours. Northfolk, southfolk—lungbreathers, coldkin—we’re supposed to hate each other. Stupid, but true.”

“Why do you call us coldkin?” Denaero asked. “You’re the ones who live on the Great Ice. We live here, where it’s warm.”

“Yes, but your blood is cold, like that of a fish,” the albatross explained. “Lungbreathers are warm-blooded.”

“It’s not a reason to hate each other,” Denaero said. “Sometimes I think people
like
to hate. It gives them somewhere to put all their anger, all their cruelty. They say,
Northfolk are our enemies, we must hunt and kill them, or they will hunt and kill us
, and that makes it all right to be angry and cruel. My father talks like that when he gets worked up, and some of his captains are worse. One of them came back from the north recently with the skin of an ice monster. It was hairy all over, like a sealskin I saw once, and huge, and it had four legs with claws, and big teeth. Uraki said it was the selkies’ creature, trained to kill merfolk, and it
did
look terrifying, but all the same I wished I could have seen it alive. Uraki said it
walks
on its four legs, walks across the solid ice—it must have been amazing. I couldn’t help wondering … if it really had to be killed.”

“It didn’t,” Ezroc said. “It was a snowbear. They kill trueseals, not merfolk, and they don’t serve the selkies any more than sea scorpions and giant crabs and crested serpents serve your people. The raiders waited for it at a borehole in the ice and took it with spears.”

“I am sorry,” Denaero whispered. “It’s true what I said, isn’t it? Hate makes people cruel, and then they think they’ve been brave, and they boast of it, as if it were a great deed. But… how did you know? About the bear, I mean.”

“The raiders were seen,” Ezroc explained. “There was a selkie—”

“One like Keerye?” Denaero looked hopeful.

“No. There are none like Keerye. One of the others, as full of hate as your friend Uraki, though he doesn’t boast of it.”

“Uraki isn’t my friend!” Denaero said indignantly. “He talks to me sometimes, because I’m the princess, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him. Who is this selkie?”

“They call him the Spotted One,” Ezroc said. “He’s not popular— even his own people avoid him—but he’s clever. He thinks the raid was a scouting party—that one day the merfolk will come north in force to make war on us. I fear he may be right. Do you know anything about your father’s plans?”

Denaero shook her head, looking bewildered. “I can’t believe it. It’s one thing to hate, but—
war?
It would be pointless. The ocean is a big place; there’s room for all of us. And it’s not as if merfolk could live in the north: it’s far too cold.”

“But the Goddess,” Ezroc said, “hates lungbreathers more than any of your people. It could be her hatred driving the merkings. If there’s a war, many will die on both sides, but she won’t care.”

Denaero’s little face scrunched into a scowl. “She may be my goddess,” she said, “but
I
hate
her.
She ate the islands and the creatures who walk on legs. I could have learned to walk—I could have climbed up onto the land and seen the legwalkers and the weeds that grew there. My father said the islands were all dry and empty, because nothing grows out of water, but my grandmother told me the weeds there were different—as tall as the sky, waving and bending in the wind, and there were birds like you, but smaller and many-colored, and all kinds of landfish, and people who couldn’t change, who had legs
all the time.
Now we aren’t even supposed to change, except to mate; my father says legs are no good in the sea. If he found out I changed when I sit on your back he would be even angrier than about the flying.”

“He mustn’t find out,” Ezroc said anxiously. “I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

But Denaero was still smoldering away to herself. “It’s all
her
fault,” she went on. “It’s all Nefanu. She hates lungbreathers, and leg-walkers, and anything to do with land and air. She doesn’t even love
us
, although we’re meant to be her own people. Her shaman-priestesses made my brother have the tattoo, even though he didn’t really want to.
He screamed for a week, the pain was so bad, and then he was ill for two moons with tryphid poisoning. The shamans said he wasn’t brave enough—he had to be brave to please her. How could a god be happy because people are in pain? She’s evil… evil… I don’t care what anyone says. When I have to go to the rituals I shut my mouth tight, I won’t say the liturgies anymore.”

“Be careful,” Ezroc warned her. “If your father notices—”

“I pull my hair over my face,” Denaero said. “Anyway, I don’t see why gods need praise so much. They must be incredibly vain, wanting people to tell them all the time how wonderful they are. Why should I praise a goddess who doesn’t even care if her people die, as long as she gets more power, and more prayer, and wider realms to rule?”

Ezroc didn’t even try to answer. “Denaero,” he said, “if she’s going to get the merkings to start a war, I have to know. Can you find out for me?”

“You mean,” she said, “so the selkies can be warned, so they can fight back, wait in ambush—kill my people?”

Ezroc’s beak dropped; he made a confused squawking noise, more like a chicken than an albatross.

“It’s all right,” she said quietly. “I’ll find out. Otherwise … it’s playing
her
game, isn’t it? I won’t play her game. I don’t want the merfolk to be massacred. I don’t want anyone to be killed at all.”

“If we knew war was coming,” Ezroc suggested, “maybe we could try to stop it.”

“You and me?”

“Er—”

“Just you and me?”

There was a short, hopeless silence.

Then Denaero said with a sudden change of tone: “Can we fly now? When I fly with you, I feel I can do anything.”

Her face had brightened; Nathan noticed how quickly her moods switched. Like a child who stops crying at the offer of chocolate cake— only she was an adult now, with an adult’s concerns. Yet her indifference to danger, too, was curiously childlike.

“Not in daylight,” Ezroc replied. “You could be seen—the risk is too great. Just meeting is chancy enough. I’ll come back when it’s dark.”

“At sunset,” she begged. “No later. Promise me.”

“After dark,” Ezroc amended. “I promise.”

He rose, splashing across the water, mounting skyward while the mermaid gazed after him, receding into the distance, a small black dot against the gold-green shadow of the sunken reef.

U
RSULA
R
AYBURN
came into the bookshop the day after DCI Pobjoy, with the object of giving Annie a formal invitation to her Christmas party.

“We’ve finally set a date,” she said. “The second Saturday in December. I want to ask
everyone
in the village, to say thank you for making us so welcome. My friends in London told me I’d loathe village life: hostile natives, snooty county types, yokels with accents you could cut with a knife … Anyway, it hasn’t been like that at all—everyone’s been lovely. Oh, and if there’s anybody you’d like to bring, that’s fine, too. I’m sure there are loads more people ’round here whom I’d adore, even though I haven’t met them yet. There’s your uncle who lives in that gorgeous house in the woods—I’ve heard a bit about him. Would he like to come, do you think? Or is he too old and doddery? I’m not at all ageist, honestly—I don’t mind old people if they don’t
act
old, if you see what I mean.”

Annie suppressed a grin. “Uncle Barty isn’t at all doddery,” she said. “I’ll ask him—thank you—but I don’t know if he’ll come. He’s not really a party person.”

“Is he a recluse? How exciting! I’ve never met a real recluse. It’s such a social coup if you can get them to venture out.”

“I’ll try,” Annie promised. “What about Nathan? You
did
say you’d be having all the children.”

“Heavens yes. That way no one has to worry about babysitters— and lots of kids rushing about always make a party
sound
lively even if it isn’t. My best friend Sharia’s coming down from Camden: she’s still breast-feeding her little boy, she does it in the pub and everywhere. It
really gets the men going seeing that sumptuous brown boob popping out of her dress!”

“I expect it does,” Annie said, blanching slightly. She had always done any public breast-feeding in the ladies’ room. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, how’s Romany? After her fall in the river—”

“That was
ages
ago.” Ursula waved the incident away, dismissing it into the remote past.
“Now
she’s got the flu—or a cold—one of those fluey, coldy things kids get all the time, though I must say it’s not like her. Gawain’s usually the sickly one. She has these shivering fits, and every morning when she wakes up the sheets are soaked. I got really panicky and called the doctor, but he says there’s nothing much wrong with her. If you ask me, it’s that room. There’s damp getting in somewhere; I don’t care what anyone says. I’d like to move her upstairs but I’m still worried about the vibes.”

“That’s where you hung the crystals, isn’t it?” Annie said. “Ri-anna’s bedroom. Isn’t it purified yet?”

She was troubled by Romany’s illness but didn’t want to show it. She didn’t need Ursula, too, thinking she was nuts.

“I’m not opening it to the public till the party,” Ursula declared rather grandly. “I want to show people up there—you know—
This is the room where the body lay, a rotting corpse, for six months
or whatever it was. Donny wants to get a mock skeleton with a wig and lay it out in the bed, just for a laugh. It would give people a hell of a shock, wouldn’t it? By candlelight, like when you found it.”

“It was daytime,” Annie said.

“Dramatic license,” said Ursula. “You don’t
mind
, do you? I wouldn’t expect you to go up there—too traumatic—that’s why I’m telling you about it. Only don’t mention it to anyone else—that would spoil the surprise.”

“I won’t,” Annie assured her. “About Romany—my uncle’s pretty knowledgeable about herbs and stuff. I could ask him to prepare a tonic for her, if you like. Just natural ingredients. It can’t do harm and it might do good, as they say.”

“Fantastic! I bet he knows all sorts of ancient mystical recipes …”

“Probably,” Annie concurred.

“Will it taste all right? She’s not very good with nasty medicines, I’m afraid.”

“Oh yes, it’ll taste fine,” Annie said with quiet confidence. “Which reminds me, what are you doing about food for the party? Would you like me to bring something?”

“That’s awfully kind. I’m doing soup and sausages and things—I thought,
not
salads, not midwinter, though I know people
do.
It’s just, salad in cold weather is so depressing …”

The conversation became technical.

When Ursula had gone Annie sat for some time gnawing on her secret worries, wondering what, if anything, she could do, about Romany and other matters, and how much of it was her imagination, and whether evil, once let into your life, could ever be completely exorcised.

“C
OULD YOU
draw the circle?” Annie asked Bartlemy over the phone, later that day. “It might tell us if Romany is in danger.”

“And it might not,” Bartlemy said. “Even if I conjured Nenufar—”

“No, don’t do that,” Annie said hurriedly. “But the other spirits—”

“—may not know. Still, it would give Hazel a chance to try her skills, under the proper supervision.”

“No!
Not Hazel. I—I don’t want the kids to know …” Annie’s voice faltered, petered out.

Bartlemy said calmly: “If they are aware of a potential threat, they can be on their guard. That’s no bad thing.”

“Yes, but…”

“What is it you really want?”

“I
am
worried about Romany—we’ve talked about it before—it’s just…”

“Nathan?” Bartlemy said.

“I want to
know.”
Annie’s tone went suddenly harsh. “His father—
I want to know.
All his life I’ve wondered, doubted … Now I need the truth.”

“You mean, you suspect—”

“Suspicion isn’t enough. I want to be
sure.
Then I’ll deal with it. I’ll—I’ll tell him, if I have to. If it’s important…”

“You know it’s important. But Annie—”

“Please don’t
but
me. I’ve made up my mind. I want to ask the spirits—the powers—whatever you call them. The usual suspects. The seeress, the Hunter, the Child. Then—”

“They won’t be able to tell you much,” Bartlemy reminded her. “We are fairly certain Nathan’s father is from another universe. In the moment of Daniel’s death you passed the Gate and became pregnant— that’s a matter beyond the scope of the spirits of
this
world. As I’ve said before, the magic circle has its limitations.”

“I know, but—what if he’s interfering? What if he’s been interfering
here
—in our world—for hundreds of years? That would put him within their scope, wouldn’t it? We have to ask them. Please. There’s no one else to ask, after all.”

Bartlemy sighed softly. “Very well. Come tomorrow. But don’t hope for too much. Spirits, like oracles, prefer to talk in riddles, if only to make things more complicated. And riddles can conceal ignorance as well as truth.”