Chapter Eight #3
They wouldn’t gather in the same place twice. They were too smart for that. What animals had the best hearing, the best nose? If I could get my hands on a Guildford shirt, I could follow the scent trail. The borrowed livery I wore now was freshly laundered and smelled only of soap.
I tripped over my feet in Edward’s lanky, unfamiliar body. Deeper into the labyrinth of apartments, I tried door after door. Most refused me.
Another groom stood self-important and glum beside an archway. I didn’t know his name, but we were familiar from the way he acknowledged me. He was younger than Edward, maybe sixteen or seventeen, his livery stitched with the Guildford griffin badge.
I dipped my head, hoping the slump of my shoulders would make me appear drunk from the festivities. “I’ve got to get into Lord Charles’s rooms. My uncle, he needs his—”
“Shall I fetch it for you?” The boy sounded eager.
“No need.” I tugged on my smile so it would appear half-crazed with drink.
The boy peered up at me. “Are you all right, Ed?”
“Not at all,” I answered honestly. “Roland wanted to dance all evening.”
A scoff. “Roland is making fools of us all, strutting around like he’s the king himself. Taking whoever will have him to bed. Men, women—” He laughed at the look on my face. “Not very selective, is he?”
I smiled tensely, and the boy was amused, surprised to suddenly find me so chaste. We must have had many conversations about women. Edward liked to boast, it seemed. “Uncle will wonder where I am,” I said.
“Yes, well, do come around. We’ll go to the kitchens, see after the serving girls. There’s a new one, very pretty, though she has a missing tooth.” He pointed to one of his canines.
I smiled again, thanking the boy, and followed his directions to Charles’s rooms. The décor was a flagrant display of wealth: towering stacks of books, a wardrobe bursting with furs and silk coats, the cushions and hangings all embroidered with scarlet griffins.
I undressed so I could carry Edward’s livery in my teeth. Becoming a dog was one of my least favorite transformations—dogs saw the world in such limited, simplistic terms.
As soon as I shifted, my nose was so cluttered with scent it was difficult to isolate Charles’s from the rest. I sniffed all the coats in his wardrobe to be sure.
There were many hounds at the palace—the king bred them for hunting—so hopefully no one would notice an odd white one trotting around.
Or sink to their knees, calling for pets.
Charles’s perfume was my path. An entire garden of florals, the effect sickening.
The freshest trail pointed east, back toward the great hall, and I became Edward whenever I needed to unlock a door.
If anyone saw me, they would assume I was returning from someone’s bed, holding my clothes in a mad dash.
With my keen hearing, I could make out lust sounds behind closed doors, the melody of a half-hearted lute.
As Charles’s scent grew stronger, I realized I was being led directly into a wall. I approached the stone several times, pressed my nose against it, but it wouldn’t budge.
This must be an old Saturn boundary. What were the conditions to cross? A particular bloodline? Allegiance to the king? If the Guildford meeting was in this hidden room, the doorway must open for one of them.
I became Edward again and slid his livery on, then touched the wall. It was still. I removed the knife in my boot and drew blood, not bothering to gasp at the pain, then scraped it against the stone. Nothing.
But the Guildfords only rose at court within the past hundred years at best. The boundary was older than that—Alvion hadn’t been ruled by a Saturn since the magician Archimago, over three hundred years ago.
This doorway must be tied to a position, not a family.
Perhaps it had been magicians who had carved out a hiding place for themselves.
What if Miranda had been the key?
I transformed my arm up to the elbow and pressed my own palm to the wall. Morning light silvered my skin. The stone disappeared. A wind tore across me, snuffing out the braziers along the walls.
As myself, entirely unmasked, I smoothed out my hair, stepping through the Saturn boundary and into the passage.
Time had eroded it. Roots punched out through the rock, twisting up to the ceiling.
Once I was inside, I turned back into Edward, growing tall and gangly, forced to duck my head as I descended thin, uneven stairs.
The darkness was absolute, the cold dagger-like, and there were no torches to light my way.
Yet I could hear voices. Charles and Tom, and another.
Low, sensual—Cecily. They stood in an ancient dungeon, the old cells now crumbling.
Candles lent scant light. My magic spread in every direction, planting a vague memory of Edward fidgeting in the corner the entire night.
I didn’t want them to question how Edward had passed through the door without a magician at his side.
Charles’s voice was a whip. He rounded on his daughter again, hardly acknowledging me as I leaned against the wall. “You have one role on this earth, and that is to please the king. You please him in bed, you make him want you like he’s never wanted anything before. The king, and the king alone.”
“But Father, he’s—”
“Old?” Charles supplied.
A grimace cracked through her face. “Incapable. He knows it. It frustrates him—”
Her father shot forward and wrapped his hand around her throat. “Make him capable.”
Cecily’s little gasps turned desperate. She was coughing and crying all at once, snot running into her mouth.
Horrified, I pushed into Charles’s mind, because the girl was starting to choke, her eyes bulging.
I snuffed out his fury, and Charles released his grip.
He stared down at his hand, flexing and unflexing it, unsure why he’d let go.
Cecily rasped, “Will you finish the job yourself if I have no son, Father?”
A look was exchanged between Charles and a figure lounging in the shadows. A cloaked shadow with ruby eyes. Miranda.
“I won’t have to. You’ll be discarded by the king as Eleanor was,” Charles said.
There was no defeat in Cecily’s gaze, only defiance, as she fingered the red handprint on her throat.
“You were supposed to match Miranda with Roland in the tourney,” Tom added. “How did you fail in that simple, tiny request?”
She mumbled something about the tournament being designed by the king and Wyatt Francis. She had no say. Wyatt wanted the women paired together so he could laugh at them.
Charles’s eyes shifted to me. “Ed, tell us about Roland’s movements.”
“Most nights he’s in someone else’s bed,” I said, trying to mimic Edward’s nervous, stuttering voice. “But he always returns before morning.”
Cecily licked her lips but said nothing.
“We need to think of another way to wean the king off him. To show the king he is fallible, that a new magician must replace him. Better yet if he’s killed.
There’s the next round of the tourney, but our own magician has been knocked out.
In a resounding, humiliating defeat.” A glare at Miranda, who shrank into her cloak.
“You joust him the day after next, don’t you, Tom? He’s listed.”
“I won’t be able to strike him,” Tom argued. “He’s better than I am.”
“Yes, jousting is too unpredictable.” Charles waved it off.
“We need proof of a betrayal. His lovers paraded before the king so he sees how little his favorite truly cares for him. He’s discarded so many, the wounded will be eager to talk.
” He nodded toward his son. “Ask Kitty Seton what she’s heard. I want names.”
Kitty Seton. A shiver swept up my spine. I hadn’t thought of Kitty Seton in years.
“Kitty is as besotted with him as Cecily is,” snorted Tom.
“What if he killed the prince?” I asked softly.
The Guildfords all looked to me. “Speak up, Ed.”
“What if he killed Prince Hal? Wouldn’t the king execute him for it? Wouldn’t that solve our problem?”
I held my breath. They were a proud family. A boastful one. I was sure they would not let another—especially Roland—take credit for their efforts.
They all exchanged glances, then Charles laughed.
“What a fool you are, Edward. The two boys were like brothers. And suppose we could frame him; he wasn’t even in the country.
Still gallivanting around Lionesse, I think.
If only he had stayed there.” He sighed.
“And the inquiry proved the prince had no food or drink that wasn’t tested that morning.
He opened no strange letters. No blood ciphers. ”
“An inquiry?” So there was an investigation of some sort. Roland hadn’t said.
“Prospero invited that old Sunborn of Estellan to court. None could lie under his questioning. Remember him, Tom? That fool with the long, golden beard he stumbled over as he walked?”
I highly doubted the Sunborn was a fool. “It was only a thought.”
“Yes.” And some thoughts shouldn’t be spoken aloud, Charles’s irritated tone said.
“We’ll speak with Kitty. She must have something we can wield against Roland.
” Pointing to me: “You watch him closely. Tell us who visits his rooms and when. And you.” He spun to clench his daughter’s chin, hoisting her gaze up to his. “You stay out of his bed.”
I couldn’t stop thinking of Queen Cecily. The hand around her throat.