Chapter 14
Alaric
What in damnation am I supposed to do now?
The queen commanded me to return with Guinevere’s heart.
By rights I should not be able to disobey, since she holds my phylactery, but there just may be a way I can slither out of this like a serpent down a hole.
So long as she believes the heart I present to her is the girl’s, then I have obeyed her.
The closest thing to a human heart is a sow’s heart. A wild boar won’t do. The heart would be too large. It will have to be a domestic pig. Even then I’m not certain it will work.
Unwilling to think about the alternative, I spur Tharrok into a canter and lean down to speak into his ear. “Carry me swiftly. There is more to do before dawn. Serve me well and you will rest next hunt.”
He tosses his head indignantly, but unlike me he cannot be perpetually in motion. My stallion needs sleep and good fodder, even if his master does not.
Even in the predawn, still the town stirs.
Puffs of white hang from the breath of tired villeins, dragging themselves from their warm beds to start another day.
A rooster tucks its head beneath one wing, not yet ready to announce the morn.
A mangy dog sniffs a pile of refuse beside a rundown cottage.
In their stall, three fat pigs lie in an orderly line, pressed against each other’s rounded body for warmth. They squeal with alarm when I vault the fence and my boots squelch in the mud of their pen. The closest sow is the smallest, the most likely to have a heart the right size.
As I draw my long knife, a voice draws my attention from behind. “Please, sir. That pig is destined for the queen’s table on Sunday. I will lose my holding if she doesn’t get what she wants.”
I turn to see a cowering man dressed in tatty gray and brown rags, looking at me imploringly.
He’s right, I have no doubt. Melantha would be no less ruthless with these simple peasants than she is the highborn servants she surrounds herself with.
Not that this is any concern of mine, yet the knife twists in my gut anyway. I’ve done enough harm today.
A vision of Guinevere’s pretty face, distorted in agony with my blade in her chest, sears me, and I grimace.
“Please.”
“I need only the heart.”
The man wrings gnarled hands together. “If I slaughter the beast now, the meat will sour before Sunday.”
I nod slowly. “Then let me take it now, and I shall replace her before then.”
It’s clear from the man’s expression that he doesn't believe me. Why should he? “Sir, I’m a simple serf. I cannot stop you if you’ve a mind to take anything of mine. Look at me. I’d have as much luck fighting a monster from the woods. But if you deceive me, may the stone god curse you.”
I laugh. I doubt the stone god could do more to me than I did to myself, but to the man I say, “I will not do you wrong.”
Shaking his head, he steps back, offering no more protest as I withdraw my knife and take the sow.
When the body is cooling and gutted, I try to leave the meat for the man’s table, but he shakes his head.
“It ain’t worth the punishment. No one around here who values his life will risk eating good meat like that. No, you may as well take it with you.”
He spits on the ground and returns to his cottage, and so I haul the carcass onto the back of my horse. It’s a waste, but I’ll have to dump it in the forest lest the queen discover my treachery.
Have things gotten so bad that she’s sending her men into every humble cottage to check what they eat? Or is neighbor spying on neighbor? Either way, the future in Erenvold only looks bleak with Melantha on the throne. And I’ve played my part in making it happen.
It’s long past first light when I finally stable my horse and take my parcel wrapped in wax cloth with me to the queen’s room. All the colorful banners in the courtyard have been replaced with black. People speak in hushed voices as I enter the castle, averting their eyes as I pass.
I haven’t washed or changed my clothing. At least the king did not live to see me walk through his castle with the blood of his daughter on my hands. Fool he may be, but he was a decent ruler while he still retained any power.
“Enter.” Melantha’s voice is as cold as her expression. When I enter, she turns from her mirror, her features pinched and her manner sharp. “Well?”
I approach and drop the parcel on her dressing table, heedless of the blood that still drips from the corners of the cloth. Undeterred, the queen reaches for it, unwrapping it quickly, then pauses to look at it.
She’s silent for so long I expect a rebuke. Eventually she sniffs. “Huh. Large for such a wisp of a thing. Did she try to fight you?”
“Yes.”
She glares at me, but I add no honorific. Eventually she looks back down at the heart. “And in the end it was as simple as that. I should have had you do that years ago.” Picking it up, she cups it in her palm. I watch, keeping my expression neutral.
Speaking to the heart, she leans forward, crushing it until her long nails spike into the cold flesh.
“You were never worth the trouble you gave me. But perhaps you can benefit me after death.” She lifts it to her mouth, squeezing until dark blood drops slowly into her waiting mouth.
When she sits back there’s a smear across her lips, but she doesn’t brush it away when she glances in the mirror.
Instead she stares at her reflection, waiting.
Then a frown crosses her features. “So a virgin’s heart does nothing?”
The princess’s heart would have worked more magic than ten of the monster hearts I supply her with each week. I don't dare tell her that, though.
I shrug. “Perhaps the girl was no virgin after all.” It costs me another unwelcome memory to speak those words. A memory of her tight young body giving way to mine; the pressure of her unwilling flesh around me.
I look away from Melantha’s gaze in the reflection.
The queen laughs. “You think she was rolling in the hay with the stable boy, then? Or the footman? Stupid girl.” She drops the heart to the floor with a wet thud. “Useless. But at least I no longer have her to worry about.”
I expect her to command me to get on my knees, and I suppress a shudder at the thought. Instead she waves her hand at me. “Remove that and have someone clean up this mess. Then bring me something that will work.”
I make my escape hastily, wrapping the heart back in the cloth, glad for the excuse to be gone from her rooms.
That peasant’s sow has hopefully bought the end of Melantha, one way or another. For when Guinevere wakes, I can only imagine how bright the bitter flame of her anger will burn or how rash her actions will be when she realizes she has nothing left to lose.