Chapter Eight Vina
Chapter Eight
Vina
The Crown has always been one with the Eternal Queen. There were no rulers before her, and there shall be none after. To claim differently is to court death. When you next travel to Nonsuch at her pleasure, I advise you to hold your tongue.
Source: Correspondence between Lord Arthur Wincroft and Lewis Spencer (deceased)
Archivist’s Ruling: Destroy. No further investigation required.
Would the Spymaster forgive her for making a mess of her unspoken quest if she told him there had been extenuating circumstances?
A murderer in a forest; a dead incarnate; and the other half of her tale, the witch, threatened by a collapsing inky woodland and a pale-eyed man who watched her with malevolence and something else Vina couldn’t place—a knowing, maybe.
Vina could not have planned for any of it. Vina had been a victim of circumstance.
There had been no easy way to collect the witch—Simran, she corrected internally.
No easy way to collect Simran. Simran had been angry and rightfully wary, and she’d shown no sign of softening in all the hours she’d been stifled in the carriage alongside Vina.
Simran had responded to every prodding question from the archivist with silence, her back ramrod straight, her lips as thin as a knife cut.
The carriage itself was dark with the curtains shut, gloomy and oppressively silent.
In the thin facets of light that broke through the gaps in the curtain, Vina examined Simran’s face, which was turned to the side, showing Vina her profile.
A sharp jaw, sharp cheekbones, a strong nose.
A lovely mouth, and dark brown eyes. Simran’s expression was stony.
Vina couldn’t help but look at her and remember how incandescent she’d been in the woods. She wondered what small spark would set Simran ablaze again. Vina couldn’t help but wish for it—anything to break the brittle cold of her, that still face.
The archivist tentatively cleared her throat and said, “Sir Lavinia. I have some questions for you.”
Vina wrenched her attention away from Simran.
“Of course, darling,” Vina said, with a languid smile. “Ask me anything you like.”
The archivist stared at her, mouth thinning with displeasure for a moment, before a veneer of politeness swept the contempt away.
Vina bit back her own laugh.
Laura and her father had tried to teach her how to charm and make polite conversation; politician’s wife conversation, Laura had called it dryly.
But Vina had taken those lessons and quickly learned how to irritate rather than soothe, anger rather than calm.
Sometimes charm wasn’t enough; sometimes Vina had to be an ornery little shit, for the good of all.
“No questions?” Vina said innocently. “I can tell you need to relax. Let your hair down a little more. I know an excellent pub in Waterloo—”
“No,” the archivist cut in through gritted teeth. “We need not talk now. Later, perhaps.”
Vina looked at the witch again. Simran was still sitting straight and tense, but her mouth had softened infinitesimally.
There was little time left to mull the fate awaiting them.
They were almost back. Vina knew the jolt of those London cobblestones, as they crossed the London Wall into the ancient city proper; and she knew what it meant when the cobbles smoothed, the carriage moving onto the path that led to the royal Palace itself.
They came to a stop. Vina did not think of golden deer, as bright as phosphorus lamps, bounding through the trees.
She did not think of the man who’d murdered incarnates and murdered a forest. Instead, she thought of the expression she’d need to wear when the carriage door was wrenched open—and ah, there the door went, flung open by a witch hunter’s careless hands, letting the cool night air in.
Vina schooled her expression into something suitably contrite, a crease between her brows and no smile on her lips—and offered Simran her hand.
Simran did not look at her. She slunk out of the carriage, landing lightly on her feet. Vina followed after her, all her bones aching as she unfolded from the cramped position she’d held all the way back home. She wasn’t used to being still for so long.
Beyond the gloom of the carriage, the evening was somehow painfully bright, painted with torchlight.
Awaiting them under the golden light of the courtyard stood a coterie of archivists, robed and solemn.
At their head waited an austere man with blond hair that Vina did not recognize by face alone.
But she recognized his clothing: the grand chains of knot-worked gold at his throat, and the chatelaine at the waist of his robe, weighed down by vials of ink and a feathered quill of beaded silver-gold.
A senior archivist. No, the head archivist, keeper of the great tomes of the Isle, Apollonius Roland himself.
If he was here, then finding the witch had been more vital than anyone had admitted to Vina. And Vina was, quite thoroughly, fucked.
The Spymaster stepped forward, face cold and forbidding.
“Knight,” he said, voice pure frost. “You were forbidden from leaving State grounds, by royal orders.”
Embarrassed men were dangerous men; but Vina was ready to be the Spymaster’s scapegoat, and danger didn’t frighten her as it should.
She bowed low, hand to her heart, and said, “I am sorry, sir. My past self came to weep at my door. I could not resist my tale. I had to obey.” Her voice wavered appropriately. “I will take any punishment the State sees fit to lay upon me. In this I followed my heart, but I failed my duty.”
She spoke with as much sincerity and feeling as she could press into her words—and heard the witch snort faintly, derisively behind her.
Archivist Roland gave a booming, indulgent laugh.
“These incarnates,” he said. “They can’t be helped, they’re always off gallivanting.
At least these two are now accounted for.
” He patted the Spymaster on the shoulder.
“No need to thank me, of course. We’re here to support you, my friend, whenever the privy council falls short. ”
The Spymaster’s face somehow grew even more pinched.
“Meera,” Archivist Roland said. “Come here.” He crooked a finger, and the archivist she and Simran had traveled with walked to his side.
“Sir Lavinia,” said the Spymaster. His gaze flickered to Simran. “Witch,” he said. “The Queen is expecting you both. Follow me.”
The whole group of them—archivists and Spymaster, witch hunters and watching guards—swept toward the steps of the Palace. At the entrance, the witch hunters were barred. They protested loudly, but they were soon left behind.
This was going to be a formal audience, Vina realized. Simran’s formal audience. They were walking along the main corridors of the Palace toward the White Hall, chandeliers twinkling above them, plush carpet beneath their feet.
“I can’t see the Queen,” Simran said, voice thin, looking for the first time not furious or stony but… nervous.
“Why not?” Vina asked gently.
Simran said nothing for a beat. No doubt Simran had heard all sort of stories about the Queen: of her hair blazing behind her like fire when she rode into battle; of the petty love games she played with her courtiers; of her luminous beauty, her terrifying temper, her joy in bear baiting and fox hunting, her love for good marchpane and glorious balls.
Of her power, Isle-wide and Isle-deep. The Queen was the most ancient incarnate tale of all, and her bones were the bones of the Isle, her heart its very life.
“I suppose she’s just a woman,” Simran said finally.
No, Vina thought. Ah no, she’s not just that. But no warning could truly prepare Simran, and there was no time for it now anyway. They were at the White Hall.
Great doors were thrown open. At the circular table before the throne sat the privy council, robed and silent.
On her unassuming throne, sat the entirely assuming Eternal Queen, surrounded by her flock of ladies-in-waiting, raven-haired and masked in vizards, ovals of concealing black velvet that only left their eyes bare.
They were all utterly silent, which was no surprise: Their masks were held in place by a bead clenched between their teeth, maintaining their muteness.
At her side she saw Simran pause, blanching in shock, before steadying.
Vina felt a pang of sympathy. Even the hardiest folk were thrown the first time they saw the Eternal Queen.
The Queen’s face was porcelain: inhumanly white, unlined, rosy-mouthed, and glassily blue-eyed.
Her face would have been doll-like if it hadn’t been so animated, mouth curving into an enigmatic smile as she beheld them, her winged eyebrows drawing together as she examined her visitors, then smoothing as she leaned back.
Her hair was red—vibrant, a mingling of copper and rose, somewhere between blood and fire.
Her gown was expansive, white, and her neck was surrounded by a ruff like a white halo, glittering with a frost of diamonds.
Even if she had not looked as she looked, her presence was overpowering: a cloying, warm fragrance of hazel and nutmeg that mingled with rosewater that scented the room.
She smelled like the incarnate she was, the flesh that grew from an old, vast, and deep-rooted tale.
She was so distracting that it was almost possible to miss her behemoth of a pet coiled loosely around her throne, her ladies-in-waiting, and the steps that led to the throne.
Her beloved pet was a wyvern, two-legged and two-winged, its scales a burnished gold and its snout long, barely concealing serrated teeth.
It would have looked like a frightening beast indeed, if it were not collared with a velvet black collar like a small dog, and if it were not snoring faintly, asleep with its snout at the Queen’s feet.