Three Dark Crowns (20 page)

“This place feels tired,” says Joseph. “As if it has been used up.”

“No,” says Jules. “It feels like what it is. Outside. It is not what the rest of these trees are. Not what the rest of this ground is.”

“Yes,” Arsinoe adds breathlessly. “That's exactly right.”

Prickles rise on the back of Arsinoe's neck. It has never felt quite like this. As if Jules's apprehension and Billy's nerves are leaching into the air.

“Was it supposed to be here?” Joseph asks. “Is this where you saw it?”

“Yes.”

It was there, before the tree. Roaring as the branches burned behind it.

But the branches are not burned. And she has led them all this way for nothing.

“How long do we wait?” Billy asks. “Should we . . . whistle for it?”

“It is not a dog,” Arsinoe snaps. “It is not a pet. Just . . . a little longer. Please.”

She turns and searches the trees. There is no sound. No wind and no birds. It is as still and silent as it always is.

“Arsinoe,” Jules says gently. “We should not be here. This was a mistake.”

“No, it's not,” Arsinoe insists.

Jules was not there. She was not the one joined to that tree, bleeding into it. She did not feel the change in the air. Madrigal said that a queen's blood would really be worth something, and she was right. Arsinoe's low magic is strong.

“The bear will come,” she murmurs. “It will come.”

She begins to walk north.

“Arsinoe?” Jules asks, and takes a step, but Billy puts out his arm.

“Give her a moment,” he says. But he follows her himself, keeping his distance as she searches.

When it arrives, it is not difficult to spot. The great brown bear is massive and trundling drowsily down the hillside. Its shoulders swing in dismal arcs as it tries to find its way down to her through the close-growing trees.

Arsinoe nearly shouts. But something holds her back. The bear does not look the way it did in her dream. With its claws dragging through the mud and its head lolling, it looks as if someone has pulled it up out of a ditch already dead and
forced it back onto its rotting feet.

“It will recognize me,” Arsinoe whispers, and forces her legs to take a step. Then another.

She smells something decaying. The bear's fur moves the way dead fur moves when it is disturbed by colonies of maggots and ants.

“Jules,” she whispers, and dares to look back. But Jules is too far away. She cannot see.

“Arsinoe, come away from it,” Billy says. “This is madness!”

But she cannot. She has called it, and it is hers. She holds out her hand.

At first, it does not seem to know that she is there. It keeps on lumbering, and to add to its list of wrongs, there is something the matter with its gait: its left shoulder slams down harder than its right. She sees streaks of red in its paw print. An overgrown claw has dug into its foot, as is common in very old or sick bears.

“Is it?” Billy asks. “Is it your familiar?”

“No,” she says, and the bear's angry, bleary eyes finally meet hers.

“Run!” she shouts, and turns as the bear roars. The ground shakes beneath its weight when it comes after her.

They race down the hill, and time slows. Several years ago, when she and Jules were children, a farmer brought his dead hounds into the square to warn people of a rogue bear. A hunting party found and killed it a few days later. It had only been a
common black, but those hounds had barely looked like hounds anymore, split from nose to tail by the common black's claws. All these years later, Arsinoe remembers the way one dog's jaw dangled by the tiniest piece of skin.

Mud from the bear kicks up around her shoulders. She is not going to make it.

Jules screams and runs toward her, but Joseph grasps her around the waist.

Good boy. He cannot let her risk herself. He has to look after her, the way Arsinoe always knew that he would.

Arsinoe's foot slides in the mud, and she falls forward onto her face. She closes her eyes. Any moment, and the claws will tear through the backs of her legs. What's left of her blood will stain the ground.

“Hey!” Billy shouts. “Hey! Hey!”

The fool has come closer, right into the bear's sight line. He waves his arms, and pelts the bear with ice and mud balls he scoops into his hands. They do not do anything besides bounce off, but it gives Arsinoe time to climb to her feet.

“Run!” he screams. “Run, Arsinoe!”

But Billy has exchanged her life for his. The bear will be on him in moments. Perhaps he thinks that a worthy trade, but she does not.

Arsinoe throws herself between Billy and the bear. It strikes out hard with its paw. The brunt of the force easily pops her shoulder out of the joint. The rest she takes across her face.

Red paints the snow in drizzles.

Camden snarls and races up the hill to collide with the great brown in a blur of golden fur.

Billy wraps his arm around Arsinoe's ribs and heaves her up.

“It's hot and cold,” she mumbles, but cannot get her mouth to work properly.

“Come on,” Billy says, and Jules cries out. Camden wails pitifully. She stops abruptly when she is thrown hard against a tree.

“No!” Arsinoe screeches. But the sound is barely heard over Jules, screaming, louder and louder until it hardly sounds like her voice. The great brown begins to shake its head and then to paw at itself. It scratches at its chest like it is trying to claw out its own heart.

For an instant, in the midst of Jules's shouts, it seems that the bear hovers in midair.

Then it falls over, dead.

Sweat rolls off Jules as though it is the middle of Wolf Spring summer, and she collapses onto one knee. The bear is dead, its great paws flung out on all sides. It lies still and looks almost peaceful now, no longer too old and too sick, but out of its misery.

“Jules,” Joseph says, and crouches beside her. He puts his arm across her shoulders and turns her face to his. “Are you all right?”

“Y-yes,” she says. She takes a breath. She is fine. And whatever she used to kill the bear, to explode its heart inside its
chest, has gone. Perhaps back into the heart of the gnarled, bent-over tree.

“Cam,” she says. “Arsinoe.”

“I know,” says Joseph. He runs through the trees, up the hill to where Arsinoe and Camden lie. Billy has torn the sleeves from his shirt and tied tight strips around Arsinoe's upper arm. He presses the rest of the cloth hard to her face.

“She didn't have enough blood to begin with,” he growls. “We have to get her to a doctor. Now.”

“There aren't any,” Joseph says quietly. “There are healers.”

“Well, whatever they have here,” Billy snaps. “She needs them.”

“They'll be at the temple,” says Jules, coming close to kneel beside them. “Or at their houses in town. Oh Goddess. The blood . . .”

“The houses are closer, aren't they? You can't panic now, Jules. You have to listen. This cheek here is going to bleed like crazy, and the snow will make it look like more. Can you help, or will you faint?” Billy asks.

“I will not faint.”

“Can we risk moving her?” Joseph asks.

“We don't have a choice,” says Billy. “The bleeding is too severe. I can't stop it.”

He and Joseph look at each other gravely over Arsinoe's body. Jules can hardly see, her tears rise so quickly. Billy said she should not panic, but she cannot help it. Arsinoe looks so pale.

“All right,” Billy says. “Get under her hips and legs. I've got her shoulders and I have to keep pressure on her face.”

Jules does as she is told. Warm blood coats her hands almost instantly.

“Joseph,” she says. “Camden. Please don't leave Camden.”

“I won't,” he says, and kisses her quickly. “I promise.”

Jules and Billy carry Arsinoe through the trees, back down the path. Joseph follows behind with Camden across his shoulders. The big cat groans softly. When Jules glances over her shoulder, Cam is licking his ear.

By the time they reach Wolf Spring, all are exhausted. The first healer's house is not more than four streets away, but they are not going to make it.

“The Wolverton,” Billy says, and gestures with his chin. He kicks at the door until it opens, and he shouts at Mrs. Casteel until there are running feet everywhere.

“Isn't there anyone of any use in this town!” Billy bellows.

They set Arsinoe on the sofa near the entrance and wait. When the healer finally arrives with two priestesses in tow, to burn the wounds closed and pull them tight with string, they shove Jules and Billy out of the way.

“What is this?” one of the priestesses asks. “How did she get these wounds? It was not another attack from Rolanth? Did Mirabella come again, through the woods?”

“No,” Jules says. “It was a bear.”

“A bear?”

“We—” Jules says, and stops. Everything happened so
quickly. But she should have known. She should have protected her.

“We were walking,” Joseph says from behind her. “We went off the path. The bear came upon us suddenly.”

“Where?” the priestess asks, and touches the serrated knife hanging from her hip. “I will send a hunting party.”

“That isn't necessary,” Jules says. “I killed it.”

“You?”

“Yes, her,” Joseph says with a tone of finality. “Well, her and a mountain cat.”

He slips his arm around Jules's waist and turns her away from any more questions. They walk slowly to stand near Billy, who kneels, stroking Camden's head. The cat still cannot walk, but she is purring.

“Joseph?” Jules asks. “They will live, won't they?”

“You made Camden strong,” he says, and squeezes her tightly. “And you and I both know that Arsinoe is meaner than any bear.”

T
here is no shortage of poison in Greavesdrake Manor. Open any cabinet or drawer, and one is likely to find some powder, or tincture, or jar of toxic root. It is whispered in the streets of Indrid Down that when the Arrons are ousted, the Westwoods will have the place gutted. That they fear that every wall has been tainted. The fools. As if the Arrons have been so careless with their craft. As if they would ever be so careless about anything.

Natalia stands before the fireplace in the poison room, taking late-morning tea with Genevieve. Katharine is beyond them, laboring at the tables. Mixing and blending in her protective black gloves.

“It has finally happened,” Genevieve says. “The weather has turned, and the fire is too hot. You shall have to start opening windows.”

“Not here,” Natalia says. Never here. In this room, the right
breeze passing over the wrong powder could instantly mean a dead queen.

Genevieve scowls and half turns in her chair. “What is she doing back there?”

“Working,” Natalia replies. Katharine has always worked very well at her poisons. Ever since she was a child, she bent over the tables and vials with such enthusiasm that Genevieve would drag her away and slap her, to try to force more seriousness. But Natalia put a stop to that. That Katharine takes joy in crafting poisons is the thing about her that Natalia most loves.

Genevieve sighs. “You have heard the news?” she asks.

“Yes. I assume that is why you have come home? To make sure that I heard the news.”

“But it is interesting, is it not,” Genevieve says. She sets down her teacup and brushes biscuit crumbs from her fingers and onto her plate. “First the attempt in the Masthead Woods and now Arsinoe is near death in her bed?”

Behind them, the clattering and clinking goes quiet as Katharine stops to listen.

“They say it was a bear attack,” Natalia says.

“A bear attack on a naturalist queen?” Genevieve narrows her eyes. “Or is Mirabella simply more clever than we assumed? An ‘accidental' death like this would not look like a strike against her.”

“She was not concerned with strikes against her when she left Rolanth to murder Arsinoe in the forest,” Natalia says. She glances at Katharine. That attack rattled them all. Masthead is
only a half day's ride from Indrid Down. The upstart elemental had come far too close.

Natalia leaves the fireplace and crosses the room to put a hand on Katharine's small shoulder. The table is a mess. It seems that she has pulled poisons from every shelf and every drawer.

“What do you have here, Kat?” she asks.

“Nothing yet,” the young queen replies. “It must still be boiled down and concentrated. And then it must be tested.”

Natalia looks down at the glass jar, filled with two inches of amber liquid. There is no end to the combinations that can be created here. In many respects, the poison room at Greavesdrake is superior even to the chamber at the Volroy. It is more organized, for one. And it houses many stores of Natalia's own special blends.

Natalia runs her hand fondly across the wood. How many lives has she dispatched from this table? How many unwanted husbands or inconvenient mistresses? So many mainland problems, handled here, to honor the alliance and the interests of the king-consort.

She reaches for the jar, and Katharine tenses, as if Natalia needs to worry.

“Do not spill it on the wood,” Katharine explains, blushing. “It is caustic.”

“Caustic?” Natalia asks. “Who would require such a poison?”

“Not Arsinoe, certainly,” says Katharine. “She may yet have mercy.”

“Mercy,” Genevieve mumbles, listening from her fireside chair.

“Mirabella, then?” Natalia asks.

“They are always saying that she is so beautiful,” Katharine says. “But that is only skin deep.”

She looks up at Natalia so shyly that Natalia laughs and kisses the top of her head.

“Natalia.”

It is her butler, Edmund, standing straight-backed beside the door.

“There is someone here to see you.”

“Now?” she asks.

“Yes.”

Katharine looks from her poison to Genevieve. She has not finished, but does not like to stay when Genevieve is there and Natalia is not.

“That is enough for today,” Natalia says. She pours the poison deftly into a glass vial and plugs it. Then she tosses it into the air and catches it. When she opens her palms to Katharine, the poison is gone, disappeared up her sleeve. An easy trick, and always good for a poisoner to learn. She wishes that Katharine were better at it.

“I will keep it for you to finish later.”

Natalia's visitor waits for her in her study. It is not an unfamiliar face, but it is unexpected. It is William Chatworth, the father of the first suitor, already seated in one of her wingback
chairs. Her favorite one.

“May I offer you a drink?” she asks.

“I brought my own,” he says. He reaches into his jacket and shows her a silver flask. His eyes pass over her bar with contempt. They linger on her brandy, infused with hemlock and with a handsome black scorpion suspended near the bottom.

“That was not necessary,” she says. “We always keep stores of untainted goods for guests.”

“And how many have you accidentally poisoned?”

“None of any consequence,” she says, and smiles. “We have partnered with mainlanders for three generations and never poisoned one who did not already have it coming. Do not be so paranoid.”

In the chair, Chatworth has a familiar, drapey air, as if he owns it. He is just as handsome and arrogant as he was when they first met all those years ago. She leans down and slides her hand over his shoulder and onto his chest.

“Don't,” he says. “Not today.”

“All business, then. I suppose I am disappointed.” She sinks into the chair opposite. William is a very good lover. But every time she beds him, he seems to think less of her. As if she gives something during the bedding that she does not take back afterward.

“I do love the way you talk,” he says.

She sips her drink. He may love the way she talks. He also loves the way she looks. His eyes never stop moving over her body, even now, as he discusses business. For mainland men, all
roads with women lead somehow right back between their legs.

“How did you find my son?” he asks.

“He is a fine young man,” Natalia says. “Charming, like his father. He seemed very fond of Wolf Spring.”

“Don't worry,” Chatworth says. “He will do as he's told. Our agreement is still in place.”

Their agreement. Struck so long ago, when Natalia required somewhere for Joseph Sandrin to be banished to. Her friend and lover had been an easy choice. She was not able to kill the Sandrin boy as she would have liked, but she would not be denied everything. There is always something to be gained if one looks hard enough.

“Good,” she says, “It will be well worth it for him to obey. The trade agreements alone will elevate your family beyond reckoning.”

“Yes,” he says. “And the rest?”

Natalia finishes her brandy and rises to pour another.

“You are so squeamish,” she says, and chuckles. “Say the words. ‘Assassinations.' ‘Murders.' ‘Poisonings.'”

“Don't be vulgar.”

It is not vulgar. But she sighs.

“Yes,” she says. “And the rest.” She will kill whoever needs killing, discreetly and from great untraceable distance, as long as their alliance holds. Just as she has, and the Arrons have, for every king-consort's family.

“But why have you come?” she asks. “So urgent and unexpectedly? It cannot have been just to rehash old bargains.”

“No,” he says. “I'm here because I've learned a secret that I don't like. One that could end all of our well-laid plans.”

“And what is that?”

“I've just come from Rolanth, brokering a meeting between my son and Queen Mirabella. And Sara Westwood told me a secret that I don't think you know.”

Natalia snorts. That is unlikely. The island is good at remaining hidden but terrible at hiding anything from her.

“If it is from Sara Westwood, you have wasted your horse's legs,” Natalia says. “She is nothing but a sweet woman. Sweet and devout. And two more useless words I have never heard.”

“Most of Fennbirn is devout,” Chatworth says. “If you had one ear to your temple, you wouldn't need me to tell you what I'm telling you now.”

Natalia's eyes flash. If she dips her letter opener into her brandy, she can stab him in the neck. It will be a race to see whether he dies of the poison or the blood loss.

“They're planning to assassinate the queens,” he says.

For a moment, the words sound so ridiculous that Natalia cannot process his meaning.

“What?” she asks. “Of course they are. We all are.”

“No,” says Chatworth. “I mean the temple. The priestesses. After your ceremony at the festival. They're going to ambush us. They're going to kill our queen and the one from Wolf Spring. She called it ‘a Sacrificial Year.'”

“‘A Sacrificial Year,'” Natalia repeats. A generation of two weak queens and one strong. No one doubts the truth of that.
But she has never heard of the weak queens being slaughtered by priestesses at the Quickening Ceremony.

“Luca,” she whispers. “How clever you are.”

“Well?” Chatworth says, and leans forward in his chair. “What are we going to do?”

Natalia shakes her head and then affixes a bright smile to her face.

“We are not going to do anything. You have already done your part. Let the Arrons handle the temple.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. “What makes you think that you can?”

“Only that we have, for the last hundred years.”