“She used to play with us,” Austra reminded her. “She used to be our friend. She made us overdresses of braided nodding-heads and dandelions.”
“That was a long time ago. She’s different, now, since she married. Since she became our mistress.”
“Then wish for her to be the way she was. Don’t put any ill on her. Please.”
“I just want to give her boils,” Anne said. “Or a few pocks on her beautiful face. Oh, all right. Give those here.”
Austra handed her a small, paper-thin sheet of lead and an iron scriber. Anne pressed the lead against the coffin lid and wrote.
Ancestress, please take this request to Saint Cer, petition her on my behalf. Ask her to dissuade my sister Fastia from threatening my maid, Austra, and to make Fastia nicer, as she was when she was younger.
Anne considered the sheet. There was still room at the bottom.
And fix the heart of Roderick of Dunmrogh on me. Let him not sleep without dreams of me.
“What? Who is Roderick of Dunmrogh?” Austra exclaimed.
“You were looking over my shoulder!”
“Of course. I was afraid you would ask for boils for Fastia!”
“Well, I didn’t, you busybody,” Anne said, waving her friend away.
“No, but you did ask for some boy to fall in love with you,” Austra said.
“He’s a knight.”
“The one who chased you down the Snake? The one you just met? What, are you in love with him?”
“Of course not. How could I be? But what could it hurt for him to love me?”
“This sort of thing never turns out well in phay stories, Anne.”
“Well, Cer likely won’t pay attention to either of these. She likes curses.”
“Falling in love with you could easily be a curse,” Austra replied.
“Very funny. You should replace Hound Hat as court jester.” She slipped the lead foil through the crack in the lid of the sarcophagus. “There. Done. And now we can go.”
As she stood, a sudden dizziness struck her between the eyes, and for an instant, she couldn’t remember where she was. Something rang brightly in her chest, like a golden bell, and the touch of her fingers against the stone seemed very far away.
“Anne?” Austra said, voice concerned.
“Nothing. I was dizzy for an instant. It’s passed. Come on, we should get back to the castle.”
6
The King
“Now, let me introduce myself,” the big Hansan said to Neil. “I’m Everwulf af Gastenmarka, squire to Sir Alareik Wishilm, whom you’ve insulted.”
“I’m Neil MeqVren, squire to Sir Fail de Liery, and I’ve promised him I will not draw steel against you.”
“Convenient, but that’s no matter. I’ll tear your head off with my bare hands, no steel needed nor asked for.”
Neil took a deep, slow breath and let his muscles relax.
Everwulf came like a bull, fast for all of his bulk. Neil was faster, spinning aside at the last instant and breaking the big man’s nose again with the back of his fist. The Hansan pawed air and swayed back. Neil stepped in close, snapped his elbow into the squire’s ribs and felt them crack, then finished with a vicious jab into the fellow’s armpit. The breath blew out of Everwulf and he collapsed.
The rest of the squires weren’t playing fair. From the corner of his eye, Neil saw something arcing down toward him. He ducked and kicked, struck feet. A man went down, dropping the wooden practice weapon he held in his hand. Neil scooped it up, rolled, and caught his next attacker across the shins. This one screamed like a horse being stabbed.
Neil bounced to his feet. The fellow he had tripped was scuttling away. Everwulf was panting in a heap on the ground, and Shin-struck was gurgling. Neil leaned on the wooden sword casually. “Are we done with this?” he asked.
“It’s done,” the one fellow still capable of talking said.
“A good night to you then,” Neil said. “I look forward to meeting you fellows on the field of honor, once we’ve all taken the rose.”
He dropped the wooden sword, brushed his hair back into place. High above, he could just make out the moonlit spires of the castle.
The court! Tomorrow he would see the court!
William II of Crotheny gripped the stone casement of the tall window, and for a moment felt so light that a rush of wind might pull him out of it. Alv-needles pricked at his scalp, and a terror seemed to burst behind his eyes so bright it nearly outshone the sun. It staggered him.
The dead are speaking my name, he thought, and then, Am I dying?
An uncle of his had died like this, one heartbeat standing and talking as if everything was fine, the next, cooling on the floor.
“What’s the matter, dear brother?” Robert asked, from across the room. That was Robert, attracted to weakness like sharks to blood.
William set his jaw and took a deep, slow breath. No, his heart was still beating—furiously, in fact. Outside, the sky was clear. Beyond the spires and peaked roofs he could see the green ribbon of the Sleeve and the distant Breu-en-Trey. The wind was blowing from there, the west, and had the delicious taste of salt on it.
He wasn’t dying, not on such a day. He couldn’t be.
“William?”
He turned from the window. “A moment, brother, a moment. Wait for me outside, in the Hall of Doves.”
“I’m to be ejected from my own brother’s chambers?”
“Heed me, Robert.”
A frown gashed Robert’s forehead. “As you wish. But don’t make me wait long, William.”
When the door closed, William permitted himself to collapse into his armchair. He’d been afraid his knees would give out with Robert in the room, and that wouldn’t do.
What was wrong with him?
He sat there for a moment, breathing deeply, fingering the ivory inlay on the oaken armrest, then stood on wobbly legs and went to the wash basin to splash water on his face. In the mirror, dripping features looked back at him. His neatly trimmed beard and curly auburn hair had only a little gray, but his eyes looked bruised, his skin sallow, the lines on his forehead deep as crevasses. When did I get so old? he wondered. He was only forty-five, but he had seen younger faces on men with another score of winters.
He brushed away the water with a linen rag and rang a small bell. A moment later his valet—a plump, balding man of sixty—appeared, clad in black stockings and scarlet-and-gold doublet. “Sire?”
“John, make sure my brother has some wine. You know what he likes. And send Pafel in to dress me.”
“Yes, Sire. Sire—”
“Yes?”
“Are you feeling well?”
John’s voice held genuine concern. He had been William’s valet for almost thirty years. In all of the kingdom, he was one of the few men William trusted.
“Honestly, John? No. I just had some sort of … I don’t know what. A terror, a waking Black Mary. I’ve never felt anything like it, not even in battle. And worse, Robert was here to see it. And now I have to go talk to him about some-thing-or-other, who knows what. And then court. I wish sometimes—” He broke off and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Sire. Is there anything I can do?”
“I doubt it, John, but thank you.”
John nodded and started to leave but instead turned back. “There is a certain fear, Sire, that cannot be explained. It’s like the panic one has when falling; it simply comes.”
“Yes, it was much like that. But I wasn’t falling.”
“There are many ways to fall, Sire.”
William stared at him for a moment, then chuckled. “Go on, John. Take my brother his wine.”
“Saints keep you, Sire.”
“And you, old friend.”
Pafel, a ruddy-faced young man with a country accent, arrived a few moments later with his new assistant Kenth.
“Not the full court garb,” William told them. “Not yet. Something comfortable.” He opened his arms, so they could take his dressing gown.