The Queen's Price, page 42
A town in Dhemlan
Dinah tossed the latest letter from Cara on her desk and let out an angry sigh. At least one of her friends was still showing loyalty to her banished Queen.
It wasn’t fair. The girls at the Hall were doing this interesting exercise—although that dinner ruined by an obscene stink sounded very unpleasant—while she was stuck with two tutors teaching her at home because . . . Well, her parents said it was because girls in the important castes of the Blood might be targeted by another coven of malice, but the real reason was because the girls who were studying at the town’s private school—the aristo girls who should have been her friends—got bitchy when she disciplined one of them. It was just a light slap on the girl’s face—not even hard enough to bring up any color on her skin. The school had no right to expel a Queen for one little deserved slap.
She wasn’t a limp goody-goody like Zoey, but she wasn’t evil like Delora. She was a Queen, and she deserved obedience and adoration from those in the lower castes of Blood.
So here she was, stuck with two boring tutors while the Queens who hadn’t shown any spine were still at the Hall doing these interesting exercises and able to exert their rightful power over the other students.
Dinah let out another angry sigh.
“What did Lady Cara say to put you in a mood?” Ida asked as she tidied up the bedside tables.
Dinah studied her personal maid. Ida was supportive and never criticized. She was an adult, having made the Offering to the Darkness, but the difference in their years didn’t matter. The difference in their social positions? Ida always seemed to know when to be friendly and when to treat Dinah like a ruling Queen.
“You used to work at SaDiablo Hall,” Dinah said.
Ida nodded. “I did, back when . . . she . . . lived there.”
The Queen of Ebon Askavi. Witch. No one said her name, even in private. She’d always been strange and unnatural. Now she was that and more. But Dinah still resented that Zoey had been granted an audience and the rest of the Queens studying at the Hall had not. Like Zoey was more important than the rest of them.
“Did they ever do exercises with something called Lady Dumm?” she asked.
“Oh, that.” Ida made a sound that might have been a laugh with bitter undertones. “Yes, I remember Lady Dumm. A dressmaker’s dummy that everyone was supposed to pretend was a difficult guest so that the girls and boys living at the Hall could practice their social skills. Not that all of them were capable of learning social skills, since some were more animal than human. But that all ended when a suggestion that might have been a little bit naughty was slipped into the instructions. Such an uproar about something that hadn’t even happened.”
Ida continued to tidy up the room, but there was a stiffness in her shoulders, and in the maid’s psychic scent Dinah picked up a still-burning anger over something that must have happened years and years ago.
“Was that when you were dismissed?” Dinah guessed.
Ida sniffed. “Someone had to be blamed for a rumor, and the housekeeper had never liked me, never thought my work was good enough.”
Dinah looked out the window as an idea began to take shape. Her tutors had droned on and on yesterday about the responsibilities of a Queen, about how doing what was right was more important than following orders.
But what if someone gave you orders that were just a little bit naughty? Nothing terrible, but something that should be within a Queen’s rights? Like ordering someone in her court to slap a person’s hand? Or a person’s face? Who would show some spine and follow the orders, and who would prove she didn’t have the courage to rule?
And if the other Queens were expelled for breaking a rule or crossing a line?
Dinah turned away from the window and smiled. “I have an idea that could give both of us a little payback for being slighted at SaDiablo Hall.”
FIFTY-THREE
Maghre
Watching Kieran ride up to the cottage gate, Butler created a ball of pale witchlight, figuring this wasn’t a conversation to have in the dark.
“Saetien isn’t coming tonight?” he asked when Kieran dismounted.
“She says not,” Kieran replied. “She spent the morning at the Sceltie school, helping out the instructors while Shelby had his lessons, and she worked with the foals in the afternoon.”
“And now she’s packing her trunks to go home?”
“No. She’s been reading Morghann’s journals, and she’s thinking hard about something, but she’s keeping it all to herself.” Kieran studied him. “Anything I should know?” He hesitated. “Anything her father should know?”
“I fulfilled my side of the bargain,” Butler replied.
“But she didn’t get an answer.”
“Not the one she wanted, no. But she hasn’t asked the right questions.” His turn to hesitate, because this was emotionally boggy ground. “Your mother might have some of the answers. Not the ones Saetien came here to find, but some answers.”
A flash of temper. “That’s private.”
“It is.”
Kieran looked away and swore softly. “Do you think it will do any good?”
“I don’t know. But I would prefer to leave the girl without answers than to see Lady Eileen heartsore because of this.”
“So would I, but that’s not up to us.”
Butler smiled. “When you’re dealing with a strong-willed witch, it never is.”
* * *
* * *
“Come with me,” Eileen said after the evening meal.
Saetien followed the woman to the library. She’d read all of Morghann’s journals—at least the ones that Kieran had provided. Since those had included a few of the years after Wilhelmina had left Maghre, she kept tripping over journal entries that included news about Jaenelle Angelline. Or Jaenelle and Daemon and how happy they were to be together. And how happy Morghann was to spend time with a woman who had been one of her closest friends since childhood.
Everyone was so happy to be around Jaenelle Angelline.
Except Wilhelmina Benedict.
Eileen looked at the journals carefully stacked at one end of the table. One finger drew patterns on the wood. Finally, she sighed and called in another stack of journals. “I don’t know if these will help you, but you’re welcome to read them—but you’re not welcome to discuss them with anyone but Butler.”
Saetien moved closer to the table. “Why? What are they?”
“Wilhelmina’s journals.”
She stared at Eileen. “Why would you have Wilhelmina Benedict’s journals?”
A smile that held a hint of sorrow. Maybe even shame. “I can trace my maternal bloodline back to her. She was an old woman close to the end of her days among the living when she told one of her granddaughters that she was Jaenelle Angelline’s sister, that they had been estranged for many years because she couldn’t accept the truth about what Jaenelle was and what she had done. She couldn’t love a monster, so she’d kept the truth of their connection a secret.
“In time, that granddaughter passed that secret on to her granddaughters—and it became a family secret passed down from one generation of girls to the next.
“My family lived in Tuathal or in towns near the capital. One day a group of friends invited me to come with them to a horse fair. Grand horses that came from the best bloodlines. And there were kindred horses as well, although ‘acquiring’ one of them was usually tricky since it wasn’t the humans who made the final decision. I knew I was descended from Wilhelmina, but I didn’t know where Wilhelmina had been before she’d arrived in Tuathal. No one remembered the name of that little village. Then I arrived in Maghre with my friends and had the strangest feeling that I had come home.”
Eileen smiled, but her eyes were bright with tears. “Imagine the shock of walking around this village, seeing the Sceltie school for the first time and driving past Angelline House, which is still what it’s called. Imagine the shock of rushing out of a shop and almost running into Daemon Sadi—and realizing who he was after the young Warlord he was with kept me from tumbling into the street.”
“Lord Kildare?” Saetien guessed.
“Yes. Kildare. I looked into his eyes and knew I would marry him or never marry. Lucky for me, he felt the same.”
“What did your family say?”
“Well, I was marrying a man who could trace his bloodline back to Morghann and Khardeen, so they couldn’t say he was unsuitable. One of my uncles—may the Darkness cherish him and keep him away from the rest of us—came to Maghre to dissuade me from marrying a man who understood so little about being aristo that he mucked out stalls along with his hired help. I wouldn’t yield, so my family insisted on a handfast, figuring I’d tire of country life before the year was done. Kildare’s family held a dinner the night before the ceremony—and Daemon Sadi was a guest. My uncle’s face turned the most peculiar shade of red and my parents didn’t say a word all evening, especially after the Prince indicated he would be at the handfast.” Eileen sighed, a contented sound. “Meeting Kildare and living in Maghre were the best things that could have happened to me.”
“Does my father know you have a connection to Wilhelmina?”
“He knew before I said anything, and the only thing he said when I told him was ‘Jaenelle would have liked you.’ ” Eileen looked at Saetien, then pressed a hand on the stack of journals. “I don’t know if these will help you, but this gives you an idea of who Wilhelmina was during the years she lived in Tuathal.”
“Have you ever seen Witch? Do you think you could . . . accept . . . her?”
“Accept her? I don’t know.”
“She’s back now. At the Keep. What do you think she’s like?”
Eileen gave Saetien a long look. “I think she’s as terrifying as she is grand. But then, the same can be said for your father, which is why I think they were well matched.”
Saetien waited until Eileen left the library before she sat at the table and opened the first journal. Would the journals tell her anything? Or was Butler right and she was looking at the wrong sister in order to find the answers?
FIFTY-FOUR
Maghre
Saetien spent two evenings reading and rereading Wilhelmina’s journals, but they didn’t bring her any closer to figuring out who she was supposed to be.
Wilhelmina Benedict settled among Tuathal’s minor aristos, avoiding the Queens and their courts. Butler had stayed long enough to help her put down roots; taught her how to hire staff, how to shop at the open markets in case the cook took ill; taught her how to cook a steak and make scrambled eggs so that she wasn’t completely dependent on someone else for food. She had an independent income that came from an unknown source—and that was of interest to some of the men who were looking to handfast as a way to increase their social standing. But when the question of bloodlines came up, as it always did in aristo families, most of those men backed away because she had originally come from Chaillot. Being connected to someone from Terreille did nothing for a person’s social standing—unless that Terreillean was very powerful.
According to the information supplied by the Keep, Wilhelmina Benedict’s father was a Warlord named Robert Benedict and her mother was a Black Widow named Adria. There was no mention of Robert’s second marriage or his connection to Alexandra through Leland, so there was no mention of the name Angelline—a name that would have meant awkward questions, since Jaenelle Angelline was known throughout the Realm.
Wilhelmina eventually married a man who loved her for herself, and if her journals were to be believed, she never felt a burning passion for her husband but she did love him, and they were content living in Tuathal and leasing a country house for a few weeks each year. They were content with raising their children.
As long as you didn’t look closely, you could say Wilhelmina Benedict was content.
Her journals told a different story. She felt ashamed of her mixed feelings about her sister—a sister she didn’t name even in her private journals. And she felt angry for feeling ashamed, since she was sure most of the Blood would have felt the same way upon seeing Witch’s true Self.
Still, she didn’t tell that one granddaughter about her sister until a month after the news that Jaenelle Angelline had died and Daemon Sadi had begun a year of mourning.
A secret that had been at the core of Wilhelmina’s life. By her own choice—a choice made for her survival. Not everyone could serve in the Dark Court. Not everyone could live in the shadow of the sheer power that court represented.
Saetien understood Wilhelmina’s choice. Hell’s fire, she had a father and uncle who still served Witch. And she felt like she’d been competing with Jaenelle Angelline all her life—and losing.
She set the journals aside. She didn’t want the answers she suspected Butler would give her, but it looked like she was going to have to ask questions about Jaenelle if there was any chance of getting the answers she needed in order to figure out her own life.
* * *
* * *
It was late, and Kieran wasn’t pleased to have to ask one of the kindred to pull the pony cart so that she could go to Butler’s cottage at that hour, but he did ask and he escorted her right up to the gate.
Saetien climbed down from the cart and marched up to the cottage’s front door. Then she banged on the wood until the door opened.
“I’ve had to compete with Jaenelle Angelline my whole life,” she said. “With me always being the loser.”
“A one-sided competition of your own making,” Butler replied. “Do you know why this competition wouldn’t have made sense to her?”
“Because she was more powerful than anyone else?”
“Nothing to do with power, Saetien. You can’t compete with Jaenelle because you will never be required to pay a Queen’s price.” So much sadness in Butler’s smile. “Wait here.”
He didn’t close the cottage door. She could have crossed the threshold and gone inside. It was the sadness in his smile that stopped her. The sadness and two words—“Queen’s price.” Was that something she should know about? Was it one of those lessons she hadn’t listened to because she didn’t want to know about Queens despite having had a friend who was a Queen?
What sort of price? Would Zoey be required to pay it someday? Did she know? Did Titian?
Butler returned in a few minutes, although it felt like rocks could grow in the time it took him to fetch . . .
She wasn’t sure what he’d gone to fetch. A shallow wooden box, rectangular in shape, and a cloth bag. The box contained . . .
“Keep the mud moist but not soupy,” Butler said. “You want it to be able to hold the sticks, and they won’t stand up if the mud is too wet.”
“You want me to poke sticks into mud?”
“Five hundred sticks. They’re in the bag. Five hundred, Saetien. No more, no less. If the count isn’t accurate, you’ll have to start again.”
“Then what?”
“You bring it back tomorrow at sunset.”
Kieran climbed down from the pony cart and took the box, putting a tight shield around it to keep the mud from sliding out on the drive home. Saetien settled in the seat, put the bag between her feet, and held the box while she and Kieran returned to the stables.
“Leave it here,” he said after arranging a couple bales of hay to form a kind of table. “If someone knocks that mud all over my mother’s floor, we’ll all experience Eileen’s wrath.”
Saetien set the bag of sticks beside the box. “Impressive wrath?”
“Not something you’re likely to forget.”
She took extra care wiping her feet before entering the house. Just in case.
FIFTY-FIVE
Maghre
The next morning, Saetien went to the stables right after breakfast. Ryder offered to take Shelby to puppy school and fetch him when it was time for him to come home, and she took that offer, since she wasn’t sure how much time this task would require.
Someone—maybe Kieran, maybe one of the stable hands—had kept the mud moist. The sticks were as long as her index finger and must have been made by hand, because they were all exactly the same length and diameter, and were perfectly smooth. She wondered if Butler had spent his nights trimming lengths of wood and sanding them to create these sticks.
“Have to start somewhere,” Kildare said, using Craft to create a barrier between Saetien and the foals who would have crowded around her to see what she was doing.
There were a few stomps and squeals when they realized they couldn’t reach her, but one of the Scelties looked at the foals and growled, and everyone with hooves hustled out to the paddocks, leaving her holding two sticks.
“Problem?” Eileen asked, passing through Kildare’s barrier to stand beside Saetien.
Saetien started to push one of the sticks into the mud, then pulled her hand back. “If I don’t do it right, I’ll have to do it again. But what’s the right way?”
Eileen rubbed a hand over one side of the shallow wooden box, then another side. “Feel these holes along the top of the box? They’re evenly spaced.” She called in a large spool of black thread and a pincushion bristling with dressmaker pins. She fit the pins in the holes. “Do you see? You can make a grid. I’m thinking, once you set up the grid, you’ll be able to place the sticks in tidy rows.”
Eileen helped her get started, then went back to the house to take care of her own chores.
Saetien had finished making the grid and started setting the sticks in the mud when Caitie came by with Stormchaser. He went to his dam’s stall for a meal and a nap. Caitie watched for a few minutes, then said, “Why are you doing that?”
