Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
At dawn and dusk, look carefully at a Venusborn. For two hours or so a day, they will appear especially exquisite, as if their every feature was chiseled from the mold of your desires.
—FABIAN DE TEMPES, THE MORNING AND THE EVENING STAR
The king’s injury was stitched up by Roland, and he’d swallowed so many herbs he no longer complained of pain. All there was to do was wait. Roland swore he would die in his sleep—of old age, of exhaustion.
He ordered Captain Tromblay to bring Charles Guildford and Fulke Roet to the audience chamber. Roland reclined on the throne as he had on the day I’d first kissed his ring, his head tilted back. The Venus King, returned to court.
“So.” Roland tutted. “Both of you lobby the king to send me to the Tomb, and then you plot to assassinate him? Is that right?”
Charles ground his teeth, then said, “We know your little mistress there broke you out. There was talk of a dragon.”
“No matter how I got out.” A lift of his chin. “Luckily for you, the king and I are prepared to show mercy, should you answer our questions.” Oliver stepped forward on the dais, a quill stashed behind his ear. “My Mercury friend will tell us if you say anything other than what you truly mean.”
“I have a question,” I said softly.
Fulke and Charles looked past Roland, finding me over his shoulder. I settled on the arm of the throne, Roland’s hand sliding comfortably around my waist.
“You?” said Charles, echoing Cecily. “I thought you were a ghost.”
“When magicians swear fealty, you pay us in gold, you feed us, you house us and clothe us, you introduce us to the fineries of court. We do your bidding and promise to serve your family well. In return, we cannot harm you, or use our powers against you. You’ve said Miranda acted against your orders.
But how can that be, if you treat her so kindly? Why would she ever defy you?”
Guildford’s fist clenched.
“If it is as you say, if Miranda acted without your counsel, I think you must take responsibility for your cruelty. For why would someone you have so degraded want to serve your family? Want to obey your orders? Why wouldn’t she lash out after years of mistreatment?”
He had no answer to that.
“Is that what you’re saying happened? It must be, if you insist Miranda acted on her own accord.”
Guildford’s mouth was a hard line. He still said nothing.
“When Prince Hal died,” I continued, “it left us with no heir, no stability. The king was forced to remarry, and no one has gained more than your family, Guildford, in that endeavor. Did you have anything to do with the prince’s death?”
Charles laughed. “The prince? No. I did not.”
Roland held a hand up and glanced over at Oliver, who nodded. All my breath fled my lungs. “And you, Roet,” he said. “You are—were, my apologies—first in line. Confess now, and I shall spare your life.”
Fulke’s gray eyes stormed with malice. “Of course I wanted my cousin dead. But I didn’t arrange it.” His head swung toward Roland. “Yet every day of my existence, I’ve longed to rid Alvion of your depravity, you manipulative—”
Roland cut him off with his hand again. “Enough flattery, Fulke.”
“Then I would like to address Mistress Mortlake’s point, if I may. Magicians must swear allegiance. Any free rein creates monstrosities, and as it did in the time of Archimago, this kingdom will fall under your rule. Guildford’s magician must be punished, not us.” The last word he spat.
Roland chuckled. “Is that what your histories have taught you? I’ll bring you books while you await your trial, Fulke.
Archimago built Redhall, you know. He was a good, loyal magician to his king.
There was a woman he loved deeply, one of the queen’s ladies, and when she died it nearly destroyed him.
As a Saturn, he had access to the realm of the dead, and the ghost of his beloved spoke to him.
She told him that the king had taken her against her will and cut her throat when she fought against him.
He’d done the same to other maids and servants and tossed their bodies into the Snake.
So Archimago confronted his king. He was bound, of course, by his oath and could not harm the king himself.
When the king showed little remorse, Archimago constructed his Tomb as a trap, so the king would waste away there and atone for his sins.
But the king did not atone. He had grown so accustomed to power he believed it let him have anyone or anything he wanted.
So. Did you ever hear that side of the story, Fulke?
I hadn’t when I was young. But now—” He stole a glance at me.
“I know that power is a question, not an answer.”
The hall rang with Fulke’s laughter. He could barely catch his breath as he pointed to us.
“The both of you are nobodies from nowhere. Perhaps I’ve paid your mother a visit, Your Grace.
And what of yours, Moonborn? Where does she toil?
My mother is the princess of Bastian, the sister to Emperor Rasmus.
I am a prince of Alvion. My father was a prince of Alvion.
My blood gives me my right. You think just because you can worm your way into our heads, we must kneel to you?
You are hated and feared by the people. By all of us. ”
“We are all nobodies from nowhere,” I said softly. “Even the king. Even you, Fulke Roet.”
“I have another question for you.” Oliver plucked the quill from behind his ear and spun it.
“Did you, at the masque of the seven planets, use a cipher to instruct your magician to murder the Sunborn magician Ambrose? Did you do so because you knew Ambrose would reveal the extent of your spy network and plotting against His Majesty? Did you lie, pretending you were drunk, so that no one would suspect? A simple yes or no will suffice.”
Fulke stepped back, finally frightened. The fear spun in him like a top. He clamped his mouth shut, refusing to speak.
Roland scoffed and gestured for the captain to step forward. “At sunrise, escort them to the Archimago Tomb to await trial. The cells there are rather comfortable, I’ve found.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” The captain bowed, and the guards took Fulke’s and Charles’s bound arms, leading them away.
When the doors shut, Oliver pursed his lips. “He’s right. The entire kingdom is terrified of magicians.”
“But Fulke is wrong about us,” Roland said.
“Is he?” argued Oliver. “We’ve deceived him. Tricked him.”
Roland’s head whipped around. “As he has done to us. Deception is the court’s way of breathing. They deceive, and so they live.”
His eyes followed me as I circled around his throne, stepping into the light. “And so for friends, and friends alone, we’ll reserve our truth.”
In the deepest part of night, when Redhall’s stained windows poured bloody light onto the stones, I sought out Roland. I knew he would be unable to sleep, too. And I sought him out because I wanted him.
My chemise whispered against my thighs as I weaved through the castle. Just hours ago, Roland and I had crept through it in disguise.
There was something I was missing. Roet dragons.
Guildford griffins. Seton basilisks. All the scheming families.
They thought two or three moves ahead; I thought five.
Yet Hal’s murderer—and my vengeance—still eluded me.
Prospero, a voice whispered. It was Prospero.
Always Prospero. Yet, despite the fact that two men were on a barge to the Tomb and Tom Guildford was dead, I could not turn back time.
I was not the version of myself who had loved Hal.
I was not even the version of myself who had come to court, seeking answers, cloaked in grief.
The sky had spun, and we had all changed.
Roland had felt it in me when he’d seen me again that first day: You want something you can only find here.
Now I finally knew what it was. Above all else, I wanted to find the past. To turn a corner here, or walk through a door, and slip right into it.
To not know terrible things. To extricate myself from pain. To set it all right.
I made a wrong turn, lost in thought, and ended up in the wrong wing. Some doors tricked me. One required a secret. “I am afraid of myself,” I whispered.
A new groom stood in the corridor outside Roland’s chambers, now returned to him. Eager and wearing his swan badge proudly, he waved me briskly inside, as if Roland had given him my description, hoping I would come.
He was fiddling with the pieces on his chessboard. “You know,” Roland said, knocking over a pawn with his rook, “I’m a little surprised you’ve come as yourself, and through the door, too. Not as something that slinks around or crawls. And I include Ed Guildford in that category.”
I settled in the chair beside his. “Have you tried to rest? It is nearly dawn.”
“Can’t. Not when—”
I nodded. “Any word?”
“None. The king is sleeping soundly. I have guards checking on him every quarter hour—and Wyatt Francis has been promoted to groom of the stool, so he’s been reporting to me as well.”
I made a face. “Is Wyatt loyal?”
“Oh, I think he sees now he has no choice. Who else will fund his revels?” Roland rested his head back. The fire flickered in the space between our bodies.
“What if we have wrenched a crown away from a tyrant, only to hand it to new ones?”
“Us, you mean?”
I looked down at my lap as I spoke. “I have always known there was something wrong in me. Something shameful. Ever since I was a girl, there was a—a hidden face. A far side. And tonight, I saw it when they all ran.” I dared a glance at him, tears slipping down my cheeks.
“When they all ran from the great hall screaming.”
“Mouse, I have a far side too.”
I wiped my eye with the back of my hand.