Wulfyddia (The Tattersall Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

Chapter
14

The atmosphere in the library was grimmer
when Spencer next visited. When he arrived Daphne and Lorna were conversing in
hushed tones. As he entered they studied him, searching his face for some
awareness that they did not find.

His heart sank. “What happened?”

“One of the cooks was attacked last night,”
Daphne said. “They found his body this morning.”

Spencer felt sick. “You think it was the
beast?”

Lorna shook her head solemnly. “Worse.”

“The Ratcatcher boy saw the attack,” Daphne
said. “He was in some sort of… drain, or something.”

“So?” Spencer asked, when the sisters seemed
reluctant to say any more.

“The Ratcatcher said it was the Fool,” Lorna
said. “He’s said to have sworn his life on it.”

“He swears that it was a beast.” Daphne said
grimly. “He claims that the Fool has become some sort of monster.”

“But… But the Fool was killed.”

“We thought so. But the Ratcatcher boy is so
sure…”

“Could he be a ghost of some kind?”

“Can a ghost rend flesh? Can a ghost maim a
man?” Daphne asked.

Spencer shook his head. “So the fool has
become the thing that killed him?”

“If it did kill him.”

In Spencer’s opinion the noises they’d heard
from behind the door had left little room for interpretation, but perhaps the Fool
had clung to life somehow. Was he now a beast himself, doomed to walk the
halls, killing at will? Most importantly, would he be coming for them?

“What does the Queen think?” He asked.

Daphne shrugged. “She doesn’t seem to care.
She has turned management of the affair over to my father and Anise. Right now
they’re operating under the assumption that the fool has gone mad and starting
killing people. They’re putting together a hunting party for him even as we
speak.”

“You think they’ll find him?”

“I have no idea.” It was an unusual admission
on Daphne’s part.

Silence reigned for a moment, and then Daphne
shook her head as if to clear it and reached into her pocket. “I’ve found
something. Something very strange.”

“To do with the Fool?”

“No.” Daphne said. “Cornelia. Thanks to the
chaos this morning I was able to push my way into the stateroom. They had a few
documents from the year Queen Domitia and her daughters died. Most were
ordinary, accounts and so on. One was not.”

“What is it?” Spencer and Lorna crowded
closer to Daphne, peering over her shoulders at a large scroll, yellow with age
and slowly flaking away. She gently unrolled it, and Spencer caught a glimpse
of what looked like an official seal stamped at the bottom. Lorna took one look
at the scroll and gasped. Spencer squinted, trying to make heads or tails of
the flowery writing. He could read, but he was used to normal print and not
this archaic script. “What is it?”

“It’s a Death Warrant.” Daphne said grimly.
“Signed by Queen Domitia herself, ordering the execution of her daughter,
Cornelia.” It took Spencer a moment to comprehend exactly what she was telling
him.

“You’re saying that Domitia the
tender-hearted had her own daughter executed?”

“Apparently. That might explain why none of
the family histories explained how Cornelia died. I could see the family
biographers wanting to keep something like that quiet.”

Spencer merely blinked. His eyes were
beginning to adjust to the strange script, and now he was able to read the
warrant, albeit quite slowly.

The first half of the page was entirely
official business, regarding the date, time and method of Cornelia’s death. Her
crime against the crown was listed as treason, and was not elaborated on. The
bottom of the page was written in a slightly different script, and seemed to
have been added in a hurry, judging by the way the lines slanted awkwardly down
the page.

“What is that?” Spencer pointed to the last
paragraph.

“Her last words,” Daphne answered quietly.
“They used to record them on the death warrant after the execution was
completed.” She took a deep breath and read them aloud. Spencer, already
unnerved by the document, could have done without Daphne’s chilling reading.

“You may think me mad, but there is a killer
in the body of the queen that drives this destruction, and I am not so undone
that I would let a queenslayer walk free after I am dead. I have set a trap, a
prison of ink and paper. Long may she reside there. Long may my descendants
live free of this violence.”

There was a grim silence that was not broken
until Daphne exhaled softly and gingerly pushed the paper aside.

“There is a killer in the body of the queen.”
Daphne repeated slowly. Lorna was sitting quietly on her haunches, her fingers
interlocked as she stared pensively into space. She did not respond to her
sister’s question. “What violence? And what did she mean by a trap?”

Spencer shook his head. He opened his mouth
to speak and then paused, studying the book. He hesitated and licked his lips.
“I think it was the book.”

Daphne blinked. “What?”

“The trap,” Spencer said. “I think the book
is Cornelia’s trap. Think about it.
A prison of ink and paper
. The book
was bound the same year that all three women died. We know there’s something
not quite right about it, something powerful and dangerous. Cicely stitches the
future onto her tapestries. The first king was a bard who captured the will of
any who heard his song. What if Cornelia could capture the body of any who
looked at her painting?”

“Why weren’t we dragged into the book then?
Why are we still here?”

“It wasn’t meant for us.” Spencer said. His
mind was snapping the pieces into place even as he spoke. “It was meant to keep
someone else in there, trap them in the pages forever.”

“Trap who?” Daphne was frowning, but she
hadn’t started arguing with him yet, which gave him confidence that his idea
wasn’t too farfetched.

“The queenslayer.”

Daphne blanched. “You think so? Are we even
sure that there is a queenslayer? I mean, before we assumed that the same
person had killed Domitia and her two daughters, but now we know that Cornelia
was sentenced to death by her own mother, so maybe we were wrong. Maybe the queen
was behind Lavinia’s death as well.”

Spencer shook his head. “No. I don’t think
so. And…” His mind was racing, and then suddenly he reached it, the conclusion
that all of this research had been spinning him towards. “That’s what Sansano
wanted it for.”

“He wanted to trap us in the book?”

“No!” Spencer exclaimed, breathless with the
shock of finally
knowing
. “He wanted to let her out.”

“Why?”

“Hm… let’s think. Why would anyone let out a
powerful, dangerous woman with a grudge against Lucretius Queens? Oh, I don’t
know . . . maybe someone who wants your grandmother dead.”

“Huh.”

“You have to admit, there’s probably a pretty
long list of people who would like to see Queen Tryphena retire… permanently,”
Spencer pointed out. He didn’t bother to mention that he happened to be on that
list. It wasn’t anything personal, it was just that it seemed like she’d be
able to do less harm from a tomb than from a throne.

“I don’t know,” Daphne shook her head.
“You’re basing all of this on the writings of a mad artist.”

“She may have been mad, but she created the
book that’s at the root of this mess. It’s thanks to her that we know why
Sansano wanted the book.”

“But there’s still too much we don’t know,” Daphne
frowned. “I mean, we still don’t know who Sansano was working with. And if he
did want to kill my grandmother, we still don’t know the reason.”

Spencer frowned, his mouth slightly open.
“You need a
reason
?”

“Well…”

“Go interview some of the prisoners in the
dungeons and ask them if they’d need a reason to put their hands around the
Queen’s throat and squeeze if they got the chance.”

“Yes, well,” Daphne sputtered. “Why was he
using the book then? Why not some other method? It’s just odd.”

“Well,” Spencer began, but Lorna cut him off.

“Because he didn’t want to be the one to do
it. This way all he had to do was let her out.”

“But the Fool didn’t have that kind of
power,” Daphne said, “he didn’t have any magical ability.”

“Maybe not,” Lorna said, “but the witch he’s
working with does, and so does her apprentice.”

“You think Melisande is trying to kill our
grandmother?” Daphne asked flatly. For the first time she wasn’t arguing.

“We’re not saying that,” Spencer said, “but
Lorna’s right. Whoever it is, they don’t want to get their hands too dirty.”

There was a dull creaking sound, and Spencer
nearly jumped out of his skin. Behind them, the door to the library opened and
the Librarian entered, rubbing his hands together briskly. “It’s bitterly cold
out there. Yet, they say we might have a thaw tomorrow. That would be nice.”
The old man crossed to the hearth to warm his hands, glancing over his shoulder
at Daphne and Lorna. If he could tell from the stricken expression on their
faces that something was wrong, he gave no indication. “The Lady Dimity is
looking for you two,” he said, “something about that business with the cook I
expect. Nasty affair.” He glanced at the papers and books that covered the desk
before them. “How is your research coming?” He inquired. “Learning much?”

“Oh, yes.” Daphne said shortly.

“Well, good. Pity that witch couldn’t tell
you anything about what happened to my book.” The Librarian’s tone was casual
but his gaze probing.

Daphne’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. Pity. Come
Lorna,” she said to her younger sister, who seemed to be wavering under the
combined stress of their recent discovery and the Librarian’s searching gaze.
“We mustn’t keep Dimity waiting. Spencer, we will see you tomorrow.” Spencer
nodded his acquiescence.

Daphne and Lorna took the warrant with them,
and left him in the dimly lit library with the Librarian, who watched him
curiously with eyes that were quite alert for such an old man. Finally, Spencer
murmured an excuse and slipped away.

***

That night, Spencer woke from deepest slumber
with a question on his lips. “What’s wrong?” he tossed the words out into the
night before his eyes were even open, aware only that someone had called out to
him in his dreams, that a voice had banished all of the images that danced
beneath his eyelids, and that he was almost suffocated by the pressure of
someone’s fear. It weighed on the air around him, and soon his own heart was
pounding in time to someone else’s distress. He rubbed his eyes and pushed his
covers off, standing up and surveying the room easily thanks to the way the
moonlight illuminated it; he could see nothing unusual or out of place.

Suddenly he remembered that there were no
windows in his chamber, and that once again, the moonlight seemed to come from
no source at all. Then he knew whose fear he was feeling. It was so vivid he
could practically picture her, stalking the halls with her light footsteps,
ringing her pale hands and crying out. He wondered what she could possibly have
to fear. She was ethereal; she could pierce the darkness with moonbeams and
vanish at will. What could touch her?

He couldn’t imagine who or what could cause
her such terror, but he couldn’t deny that she was afraid, not when he could
feel her flinging her essence about the little chamber like a moth trapped in a
jar, spiraling around its cage with mounting panic. His lips parted so that he
could speak to her, but he could feel the woman’s pull, like the whisper of his
name and the rustle of silk as she slipped out the door and around the corner.
Rather than speak, he opened the door and followed her. The hall was so well
lit by her essence that it might have been midday, except that the light was
soft and white. He followed her out into the hall and he was grateful that the
sisters weren’t there so that could be alone with her to try to decipher her
message. He was certain now that she had one, he could feel it in every whisper
as she lead him to the mirror.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her again as he
confronted his own reflection in the enormous mirror. He knew that it was dusty
and barely maintained by day, but at night she made it sparkle like a
reflective pool. “I know that you want to tell me something.” He paused,
waiting for something, anything. She gave him no message, but he could still
sense her there, hovering about the room, sometimes just behind him, sometimes
high at the ceiling, but always watching, always afraid. “I know you’re a
friend. You warned us about the Fool. You saved us from him. You warned us
about the book.” Spencer waited, listening. Nothing. She was still there, but
still she waited. “Is that what you want to tell me about?” he asked her, “is
it whatever’s in that book? Is it the Queenslayer?” He didn’t want to admit it,
but he was a little fascinated by the thought of whatever lurked within that
book.

He hesitated. There was energy gathering
behind him. He could feel tension in the air. “Who is in that book?” he asked
her. “What do we need to know?”

He stopped. White light was rapidly gathering
behind him, slowly filling out into a glowing figure, the whiteness shining so
brightly that he almost wanted to turn his head away. Then, when it had gotten
as bright as he could bear, it died away entirely, and he was left staring into
the mirror at the reflection of a person behind him.

It was his own reflection.

A doppelgänger. A second him, standing behind
his original reflection.

But while he was in his bedclothes with
mussed hair, this boy was dressed, with the Book gripped tightly under his arm.
But his eyes… His eyes were wide and staring, his face white and lifeless, his
clothes stained with a rich wet redness that dripped down his pale face,
drenching the book and his clothes, his shoes, staining his hair red. And his
eyes were so very wide…