Chapter Eleven #3
The traitors’ heads were made into centerpieces, the swan carted away.
The king’s hounds sprawled at his feet, gnawing on leftover bones.
A tipsy King Richard then paraded Oliver and Roland up and down the tables, families swarming and pecking around Oliver again.
Was he oathed? Would he swear fealty? Even Fulke Roet pulled him aside, and they spoke for a while, heads bent, before Oliver extricated himself.
If such attention was the prize of this tournament, I didn’t want it. I was finished, I had failed, and a sliver of Moon hung over my head, as dismal as I felt.
The garden paths fed me into the king’s hedge maze. I’d always found it to be a good place for quiet tears. I seared the dead boy into my memory and promised myself this: One day, I would wrench the court’s gaze toward all its needless loss.
The Moon, ever so slowly, drifted behind clouds. And behind me, gravel stirred.
It was Roland. Breathing hard from dancing, hair wild. “That was madness,” he hissed.
“Did you know?”
“I knew nothing. Wyatt told me nothing.”
“Was yours truly guilty?”
He laughed bitterly. “Yes. Very much so. Stealing correspondence was the least of it. He longed to kill the king, too. Wanted to wrap his hands around Richard’s throat and drain the life from him.
I thought about saving him, just so he could play out his little fantasy. But then Fulke would inherit.”
I only wrung the trumpet sleeves of my gown.
He ducked his head, caught my eyes. “We have a bargain now, you and I, that goes beyond the tournament. You won’t be sent off in a cart in the morning.
You’ll remain at court as my guest. You were so antagonistic at first, but see, Mouse?
This is why you shouldn’t lead with knives.
” If it was an attempt to coax out a small smile, it worked.
He glanced further down, to my sleeves. “And stop that with your hands, or you’ll tear your gown. ”
My fingers stilled. “While you were resting these past few days, I had ample time to think.”
He gestured back to the garden path, to the feast. I followed behind him. Over his shoulder, he asked, “And what did you think about?”
“Kitty Seton.”
I’d surprised him. He swung around. “Kitty? What has Kitty got to do with anything?”
I told him the Guildfords had mentioned her name, and how observant she was, how shrewd. I’d been watching her, and I wanted her memories of Hal’s inquiry.
“No. I forbid it.”
“No?”
“No. She is the most dangerous person at this entire court.”
I snorted. “And what, pray tell, did she do to make you fear her so?”
“She provided evidence against Alice Seton, her own sister, and her father, too. That’s why she alone was pardoned. That’s why her entire family is dead.”
My breath hitched. I hadn’t known.
Roland batted a branch out of the way, his voice low.
“The rumored motivations vary. Some say she was jealous of Alice’s status as the king’s mistress and believed the king would have her instead.
” A wave of his hand. “I’m not so sure about that one.
Others say she was convinced by a lover, or spite, or was driven insane.
But I know Kitty Seton longs to be asked questions.
People like her adore interrogation, Mouse.
It’s the only time in their sorry lives the focus is on them.
That’s why I think she betrayed her family—so she could elbow her way into the story. So she could be the one telling it.”
That’s when I understood. Kitty stared after him with such longing, and he knew her personality so intimately, because they had once been lovers. “Oh, Roland.”
We had come to a fountain in the center of the knot garden.
He sighed. Dreading whatever he was about to say.
“I was fourteen. The Setons were at the height of their influence, and I thought she was very pretty. I didn’t know her true nature.
Do me a favor, won’t you, and forget? Don’t—Don’t remember me as I was then. ”
Roland at fourteen. Me at ten. How could I ever forget? He’d just called me Mouse for the first time, and the gangly limbs of his boyhood had begun to fill out, the pimples on his cheeks fading, and all at once he was someone I couldn’t bear to look at.
“I’ve endured this tournament, this court—I endured that so I could find answers. She must have them.”
Instead of arguing further, he changed the subject. “Did you make any progress with Eleanor’s book?”
I told him how many hours I’d spent with it, with little to show. “We need a Mercury.”
“Hmm,” he said, “we always need a Mercury, don’t we? Oliver will have a price. There’s always a price for magic.”
“And what’s your price?”
He pondered this for a moment, then held up his ring. “Influence. Yours?”
“A home, I suppose.” I shrugged. “Safety.”
“Oh, Mouse, what a tragic answer. We should have named you Crab instead, for how much you love your shell.”
I ignored this. “What do you think Oliver’s price is? Can we pay it?”
A hand shook through his hair. He grew agitated the longer he thought through my question.
“I’d say same as mine. Power. Assurance.
He longs for a seat on the privy council.
A place here at court. Let’s hope he’ll settle for something smaller from us.
He’ll swear an oath soon enough, the way he’s competing in the tourney. I always underestimate Mercury.”
“He saved your life. Surely, it’s worth a council seat.”
“I heard talk it was not Oliver alone who did that.” His eyes found mine and held.
“He saved your life. For that, I’ll give him whatever he wants.
” He nodded toward the stained block, still resting in the lawn by the banquet tables.
“I didn’t have any revelations before the end, you know.
Just before the memory of us all racing to the tree, before I felt you in my mind, I saw my mother.
She was—” He smoothed his hair back. “—petting me. Like this. The way she used to.”
I had never heard him speak of his life before court. “What was she like?”
He shrugged. “Beautiful. Vain.”
“Nothing at all like her son.”
“At least I’m not a wiseass.” He tutted, then glanced at the ring of courtiers still surrounding Oliver. “I’ll tell him we shall meet him in two nights’ time, at his inn.”
My heart sank. “No. It must be tomorrow.” I was unsure if I could trust him with this, my greatest weakness. I tipped forward, drew back again, then decided, at last, to press on. If I couldn’t trust him, then I had no one at all. “The night after is a new Moon.”
His brow knit. “So?”
“So, I’ll be worthless to you.”
I thought of all my past selves, shivering defenseless in the dark. We stood face forward and spoke in hushed tones now that we had returned to the lawn, pretending to watch the masque being performed. I could glean a heroic charge being led by Tom, but little else.
Roland centered the jewels on his knuckles.
“Prospero always said every planet has a wound. For the Moon, one day of vulnerability when the sky is dark. For Venus … never mind. Tomorrow it is.” He studied me for another beat and shook his head.
Sadness was a well in him. “You could never be worthless to me, Mouse.”