The Queen's Poisoner (The Kingfountain Series Book 1) (12 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Poisoner

Ankarette Tryneowy lived in the highest tower of the palace of Kingfountain. As Owen climbed the steps with her, hand in hand, she told him how she was able to keep her presence secret. No servants went to her tower. The butler’s servants believed the castle almoner maintained it. The almoner was told that the butler’s staff serviced it. The master carpenter thought it was scheduled to be remodeled as soon as the funds became available. It was protected by a web of lies and deceptions so subtle that everyone had a belief about the tower that was just not true. One of the few people who did know the truth, Ankarette explained, was the cook, Liona, who always set aside a tray of food each night.

Not even Eredur’s queen knew where the poisoner dwelled.

The stairs were a difficult climb for Owen, and he was breathing hard as they huffed up the narrow tower well the following night, his guide holding a single candle to light the way. His forehead was plastered with sweat by the time they reached the top.

“It’s so small,” Owen said, panting, after she welcomed him to her private domain.

Most of the space was occupied by a small canopied bed swathed with thick velvet curtains to help her sleep in the daylight. The blankets were furs and Owen went to them and rubbed his hands against their softness. There was a small table topped with a globe, a set of scales, and several vials and tubes containing various potions and concoctions. His eyes widened when he saw them, but he kept his distance. Throughout the room, there were pestles and mortars of various sizes, some on the floor, some on the windowsills. These made him nervous, so he looked away. His gaze fell on a fancy embroidered curtain, and he walked up to it for a better look.

“This is pretty,” he said as he touched it reverently.

“Thank you. I made it,” Ankarette said. She went to the table with the potions and began mixing up a cup of tea.

“How?” he asked in amazement, but she did not answer as she worked on the drink. Then his eyes narrowed in on the curtains on the bed, done in darker threads, and shot down to the similarly designed carpet. Everything in the room, from the table to the bookshelves, had little ornamented embroideries.

“You did all of these?” Owen declared. His mother and sisters did sewing, but nothing this fancy.

“I like embroidery,” she said modestly. “That is my gift. I never tire of it. You like to stack tiles, true?”

He nodded, touching the fringe of a shawl draped over the only chair in the room.

“I normally don’t receive visitors,” she said. “You are the first to have been in my tower in many years. Here, drink this. It will help with your wheezing. Your lungs are weak and in need of some medicine.”

He eyed the cup suspiciously but it smelled fragrant and when he tasted it, he could tell she had added honey. It had a strange flavor, but not unpleasant. As he sipped, his eyes went hungrily to the Wizr board sitting on a small wooden pedestal. The pieces were carved out of alabaster . . . purple and white, with matching squares. The set filled the small round table.

“Do you play Wizr?”

Owen nodded eagerly. “I always used to watch my brothers play. But I like to play as well.”

“Would you like to play it with me?”

“Yes!” Owen said, slurping down the rest of the tea. “It’s normally black and white. This one is purple. I want to be purple.”

“I like to play white,” she said. She went over and knelt on the rug by the pedestal and board.

“How do you play it by yourself?” Owen asked curiously, studying the board.

Ankarette moved the first piece. Owen followed, using his normal pattern of moving the middle pieces first. She captured his king in four moves.

Owen’s eyes stared at the board, then at her. “How . . . how did you do that so quickly?”

Ankarette smiled knowingly. “I will teach you. There are many strategies in Wizr. If you know them, they can help you win quickly. Would you like to learn them?”

Owen nodded with enthusiasm.

As they reset the few pieces, she asked him another question. “Owen . . . are you afraid of me because I’m a poisoner?”

His head whipped up and he looked at her, his eyes betraying his emotions. He nodded, but did not say anything.

“Owen,” she said softly, putting the last piece in its place. “Please understand. I only poison
dangerous
people. And only when it becomes absolutely necessary. I would be a little afraid if I were in your place. But I wanted to show you my tower so you would see that being a poisoner is a very
small
part of who I am. It is one way I serve the queen, yes, but I also serve her by giving her advice and counsel. When I was trained as a poisoner, I was also trained as a midwife. So part of my work involves death and another part involves . . . life.” She gave him a meaningful look he didn’t understand. Then she brushed her hands together. “I also try to remove threats to the kingdom without resorting to poison. I like to make beautiful things. I do a lot of . . .
thinking
. . . while I stitch. My mind goes this way and that, studying a situation from many angles. That’s why I am very good at Wizr.”

She put her hands down in her lap. “I want to help you, Owen. But if I am to help you, I need to trust you, and you need to trust me. I brought you to my tower. If you told anyone that I lived up here, the king would send soldiers to kill me.”

Owen gasped, feeling a prickle of unease go down his back. He wouldn’t do that!

She nodded seriously. “So you see . . . I am trusting
you
. But that is what friends do, Owen. I want to be your friend. Not just because the queen told me to help you, but also because I like you. I will do my best to come up with a plan to keep you safe. I will teach you Wizr. I will teach you all about poisons, so you will know by smell if something is harmful. I will give you potions that will help you breathe better and make you stronger. But Owen, I will never ask you to poison the king or anyone else. That would be wrong of me, wouldn’t it?”

Owen nodded vigorously, his eyes wide.

“The queen has not asked me to harm the king, even though he is a dangerous man. He is the last heir of the Argentine family. If he dies, there will be terrible calamity. And Dunsdworth can’t inherit because his father was guilty of treason.”

“What did he do?” Owen asked with eagerness.

She shook her head. “There is too much to explain for me to tell you everything in one night. We have time, Owen, you and I. Tomorrow, we shall talk again. We will need others to help us if we are to succeed. Liona and Drew will help. I’ll speak to them tomorrow, but we will need others to join us as well. You know Dominic Mancini, who stays in the kitchen? He could be a good helper.”

Owen gave her a little frown. “But he works for the king!”

She smiled. “He pretends to. He really works for someone else and is spying for them also. I think I can persuade him to be an ally. I can be very convincing. But your role is the most important, Owen. You will need to learn courage. You will need to do things you think are impossible. I believe you can.”

She reached out and smoothed his hair, giving him a warm smile. Owen swallowed as he looked into her eyes. Suddenly she winced like the king did when he moved his leg a certain way, but she did not drop the smile.

“Are you sick?” Owen asked.

“Tired,” she said. “Go back down to the kitchen. I will meet you there again tomorrow night. Will you do that for me, Owen? I cannot . . . make it back down the steps right now.”

He nodded, staring at the little room in wonder again. He was eager to return.

“This is our secret place,” Ankarette whispered.

Owen went to the small doorway. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise. Can I take the candle?”

She nodded. “Leave it on the table by the tray of food Liona left for me. Blow it out, Owen, when you get downstairs. It was nice seeing you—”

She halted, her words falling into silence. Owen stared at her a moment longer, waiting for her to say more. He had the distinct impression that she was going to say that they had met before, but he would never have forgotten someone like Ankarette.

It was midbite of a bowl of blueberry fool that I learned she’s still alive. I almost choked. I was handed a note with instructions to wait in the kitchen until after dark. It bore Ratcliffe’s seal, so I obeyed and helped myself to the sweet dessert as I waited. But the note was not from the odious Ratcliffe. It was from Ankarette Tryneowy. I jest not. By all accounts, this woman died eight years ago. I remember hearing of it and wondering at the audacity of the king’s brother, Earl of Dunsdworth, who would judicially murder his brother’s poisoner, one of the Fountain-blessed, no less! You can imagine her demise caused no small shock among the Espion, both foreign and domestic. Some say Eredur had his brother killed because of Ankarette’s death. I cannot tell you how delicious this is—the news, not the berry fool. She has promised to tell me her story. She has promised me information that cannot be bought, traded, or stolen. She is the penultimate trickster. The cunning hand. The queen of deception. And she is now my teacher. I think I’ll take another helping.

—Dominic Mancini, Espion of the Palace Kitchen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Broken Vows

Owen’s world changed the night he met Ankarette Tryneowy. He was part of a secret now—a secret so vast and interesting that he could hardly sleep. Over the nights that followed, she taught him about the secret tunnels and passageways that lined each of the palace’s rooms. How to find the hidden latches that would open a door concealed by a painting. How to slip away a panel of wood so he could see and hear what happened in the adjacent room. She taught him how to walk quietly. How to hold perfectly still. She taught him the secrets of torchlight and shadows and how the human eye adjusts to both.

Owen, being an eager learner, soaked it all up.

When Ankarette wanted to visit him during the day, she would slip something into Jewel’s tea that would send the woman off into a loud snoring fit. They would always return from their outings well before she snorted herself awake, none the wiser.

The secret gave Owen a sense of power and purpose. When the king jabbed his dagger in his hilt or mocked Owen during the meal, he would look back and think,
If only you knew what I know. If only you saw what I did in your palace.

The palace was an intricate maze of corridors and towers. But beyond the well-kept halls where everyone walked and ate and slept, there was an underworld teeming with dark hidden places. Places that smelled like musty barrels of wine. Places where the guardsmen diced and drank with the servants and stayed out of Berwick’s sight. Owen watched Dickon Ratcliffe’s Espion as they boasted and bragged about their exploits when they came in from assignments. As they mocked Ratcliffe behind his back and scorned him for always heaping the credit for their work on himself.

Ankarette did not say much. She would take Owen to new places and let him wander around and explore while she looked on with a smile of affection and warmth and answered his questions. Sometimes she would ask him a question, something to make him think, and think hard. Only after he had exhausted his brain would she provide the clues he needed to teach himself the answer.

“Ankarette?” he asked her one day, as they were playing a round of Wizr at the table in her tower room. She had already taught him the simple ways to defeat any opponent who was untrained. Their games were lasting longer now, but he had never come close to winning yet. “What is the most
useful
thing I need to learn? Is it poisons? When are we starting that?”

She was about to move her next piece, but she lowered her hand into her lap instead. “What do you think the most useful thing is, Owen?”

He scrunched up his brow. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” he said.

She gave him a patient look and said nothing, letting him tease it out in his own mind.

“There is more useful knowledge than poisons,” she said encouragingly.

He frowned, screwing up his nose. “I think it might be knowing
when
to use poison,” he said.

“Tell me what you mean?” she asked.

“Well, you said that you only use poison if other things don’t work. So, isn’t it most important for a person to be able to tell whether a situation is hopeless or not? Like what you did with Mancini. You knew you could trust him to help you.”

Ankarette laughed softly. “I wouldn’t go
that
far.”

“But you trusted him enough to tell him you didn’t die. And he’s part of the Espion!”

“Many of the Espion know about me,” Ankarette said. “He didn’t. By giving him that secret, I gave him power. That’s what he craves more than anything, so I knew it would make him a valuable tool.”

“He craves muffins more than power,” Owen said disdainfully.

She smiled again and tousled his mousy hair. “He does indeed. Did I answer your question?”

Owen frowned. “Not really. You’re pretty good at
not
answering questions.”

“Let me put it another way. Let’s talk about it like stacking tiles. You build a tower out of tiles and then you want to knock it down. If you set the tiles too far from the tower, it won’t work.”

Owen looked at her curiously. “Well, the tower needs to have a weakness. You have to hit it at the right angle to make the tiles fall. If you hit it the other way, nothing will happen.”

“Yes, exactly. You have to hit it where it will fall. That’s what I did with Mancini. I didn’t offer him food. He has
plenty
of that! I offered him knowledge. Secrets.” She reached her hand out and moved the next piece, winning the game of Wizr.

Owen scowled. He had already planned his next two moves and had not seen it coming. He didn’t think he was ever going to win against her.

“But how did you
know
that?” he pressed. “How did you know that’s what he wanted?”

Ankarette folded her hands in her lap. She was quiet for a moment. Sometimes he could tell she was in pain, but this was not one of those moments. Her pain usually started with tightness around her eyes, then her breathing would change and she would tell him it was time to go.

“Owen,” she said softly, peering into his eyes. “The most important thing you can learn is discernment. Have you heard that word before?”

He shook his head no.

“It is the ability to judge well. It means not just seeing an action, but the reasons
behind
the action. Many people say things they do not believe. They lie and deceive. They may act one way in public and another in private.”

Owen stared at her, still confused. “I don’t understand.”

“This is hard enough to explain to adults, Owen. It is especially difficult to explain to children because you are so young and haven’t experienced much yet. I’ll try to help you. You like to talk. You like to ask questions. You like to laugh. But when you are in the presence of King Severn, your voice goes down to a tiny squeak and you cannot speak. It’s because he makes you anxious and uncomfortable. Right?”

He nodded.

“If I judged you by how you are in the king’s presence, I would not see the whole picture of you. By spending time with you, I’ve gotten to know you better. I have learned what you are really like. The ability to do this quickly is called discernment. It is priceless, Owen. Let me tell you a story to show you why.”

No longer upset about losing the game, he wriggled his finger in his ear to stop an itch, then stared at her eagerly. He loved hearing her stories, for they were rare.

“There was a king . . . almost a century ago. He stole the crown from his cousin.”

“Why did he do that?” Owen asked, curious.

“Because the king banished him for having an argument. He was a duke, just like your father. And he had an argument with another man, an earl. They would not resolve it, so the king banished them both. One he banished forever. The other he banished for a time. Then the king needed some money and he stole it from the banished duke’s estate. The one who was going to come back in time.”

Owen scrunched up his face. “That’s not fair!”

Ankarette smiled. “You’re right. It wasn’t. And the king ended up losing his crown to the duke because of it. One day, years later, some of the new king’s men began to rebel against him. They created an army to depose him.”

“Why? Had the king done something to them?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t over money. What happened was he did not show them enough gratitude. People can be strange sometimes, Owen. They will rebel for small reasons. The king was old and sick at the time, so he could not lead his armies anymore. He sent one of his sons to lead it in his place. When his son arrived, the leaders of the rebels tried to talk to him first in the hopes of avoiding a battle, which would have killed many people on both sides. The prince listened to their complaints and made promises in his father’s name. He told them that if they disbanded the army, they would be heard and their problems would be solved. The rebels listened . . . and they believed him because he swore an oath of honor in the king’s name. The young prince suggested that both armies disband at the same time. The soldiers would go home and no one would be injured or killed. Do you know what happened next, Owen?”

“No,” he said. He had never heard this story before.

“The prince sent his captain out, but he did not disband his army. They waited until the other army was disbanded and the soldiers were leaving. Then they hunted down what remained of the rebels and started killing them as they escaped. The leaders were all taken to the river and drowned because they were wearing heavy armor. This is a sad story, is it not, Owen?”

Owen’s heart had filled with horror. “But . . . but . . . the prince
lied!
”

Ankarette nodded, her expression sad. “That is the way of princes and power, Owen. That is the nature of the kingdom of Ceredigion. In truth, it is the nature and disposition of
most
men. So think on this. If you were one of the rebel leaders and the prince promised you forgiveness and reward, it would matter, very much, if you had
discernment
. He needed to make a decision based on what type of man he believed the prince to be. Was he a man of honor? Or was he willing to say anything,
do
anything to help his father keep his crown?” She folded her hands together. “That is why discernment is the most important thing you can learn, Owen. It takes time and experience. Sadly, one wrong judgment can lead to . . . well, you
heard
the end of the story.”

Owen had no doubt that King Severn was like the prince who had so ruthlessly killed his enemies. He had made Owen promises and promptly broken them. He would say or do anything to maintain his power. Maybe that’s what Ankarette was trying to teach him.

She smoothed her silk skirts. “Why don’t you go back? Jewel will awaken soon and then you can have some supper. I hope to see you later tonight.”

He smiled and rose, feeling little tingles in his feet from the way he had been sitting. He gave her a hug—she liked it when he did—and she patted his back and kissed his cheek.

“You really are a darling little boy,” she whispered, grazing her finger down his cheek.

“Have you thought of a way yet?” he pressed.

“No, but I have some ideas. I’ll keep thinking as I work.” She reached for her needles and embroidery.

Owen went back down the narrow stairwell and slipped down the secret corridors. He found Jewel in the room, still snoring softly. He waited a moment, listening to her breathing, and then grabbed a book and read it until she awakened with a fitful snort.

“I’m hungry,” Owen said, slamming the book shut and putting it away. “I’ll meet you at the kitchen.”

Without waiting for her reply, he dashed out of the room, hearing her scold and chide him as he went. “Wait for my old bones, lad! Wait a moment! Owen Satchel, you get back here! Owen!”

As he rushed around the corner, he collided with Dunsdworth, who was coming the other way. The older boy grunted, “Watch where—oh, it’s you! Kisky!” He seized Owen’s arm, clearly intent on giving him bruises.

Owen, almost without thinking, grabbed Dunsdworth’s little finger and yanked backward. It was something Ankarette had taught him about the body and its weak points. The little finger wasn’t easy to grab, especially if someone was expecting it, but Dunsdworth wasn’t. He yelped in pain and surprise and released his grip. Free, the wiry little boy started running toward the kitchen.

“You little
urchin
!” Dunsdworth bellowed, starting after him at a run.

Owen’s stomach twisted with fear as he ran down the corridor, cursing himself for not having waited for Jewel. It was a long way to the kitchen, and Dunsdworth’s legs were much longer.

Owen ducked around a side corridor. If he could reach the end without being seen, he could vanish through a secret door. The sound of his pursuer’s boots grew louder.

“Come back here, little snot!”

Owen’s feet were going so fast he almost wasn’t touching the tiles. He could feel the vibrations of the pounding behind him. He wondered if he had enough time to trip the latch. But what if Dunsdworth saw him? How would he explain his secret knowledge?

Worry and fear mixed in his bowels.

Panicked with indecision, he veered around the corner and nearly slammed into someone. He caught himself just in time, but a firm and sturdy hand grabbed his shoulder. He twisted around in fear just as Dunsdworth came barreling around the corner, his face twisted with rage.

“Hold there!” Duke Horwath scolded. “Look at you two, racing about.”

Dunsdworth’s face was red and he was panting. “Lord Horwath!” he stammered as he stumbled to a stop. “I was . . . just . . . trying to catch him . . . he stole something from me.”

Horwath’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. It was obvious he didn’t believe it for a moment. “Get you gone,” he snarled at Dunsdworth. The lad’s ruddy cheeks paled and he turned on his heel and fled.

Owen had not seen the duke for weeks, and had not expected him to return to Kingfountain so soon. He tried to stammer out his thanks, but his tongue swelled in his mouth and he could say nothing. Frustrated with himself, he wiped sweat from his forehead.