The King Slayer Part 18

The rope slithers to the floor. I'm hauled to my feet, wrists still shackled, and dragged to the door that has now reappeared. I begin to imagine the things they will do to me, but I don't imagine this: a scuffle, a startled shout; a squeeze of my arm and a flash of light before the room once more goes dark. I'm being crushed, my lungs don't draw breath. I can't see. I'm moving, flying, yet immobile, going nowhere.

Then, finally, silence. Vast. Endless.

Complete.

THE FIRST THING I NOTICE is warmth.

The smell of carbon: flames, but not ritualistic or stinking of oil, or of death. These flames are friendly: the rosemary-scented fire of holiday and family and life. The grip on my arm is still there, joined now by a hand on my shoulder, firm but gentle. This, too, feels friendly, but I'm unsure. Too many things that started out as one thing have too quickly turned to another, and not for the better.

"Elizabeth." A whisper in my ear then, a voice I know. Quiet, rea.s.suring. Fatherly. "You're safe now. You can open your eyes."

I do.

I'm kneeling on a soft rug, and I know it, too: flowers and vines woven in yellow, orange, and green. The fire I smell roars in a familiar hearth; woodland tapestries draped across white plaster walls, wide-open ceilings.

Before me: Peter, crouched on his knees, smelling faintly of tobacco and something sharper-whiskey; brandy, maybe. He fumbles with the bindings around my wrists, my ankles, they unlock and he throws them aside; they land across the room with a clatter. Then he pulls back to look at me, his eyes dark and red-rimmed, his skin pale, his clothes rumpled. He looks so much like John I have to turn away.

Someone hovers beside me. Slowly, I turn to face him: a tall, dark-robed figure from the ritual room, no longer holding a candle but a stone. A lodestone, still giving off a faint, pulsating glow, a thin veil of white smoke. Slowly, he lowers his hood.

Nicholas.

"You," I say. My voice is hoa.r.s.e from screaming. "How?"

"Keagan," he replies. "And Schuyler. They told me what happened at Ravenscourt, then Schuyler told me where you'd been taken. Keagan helped me devise a way in; Fifer helped me devise a way out."

So Keagan made it back from Ravenscourt alive. "And what of Malcolm?" I say. "Is he safe, too?"

"Yes," Nicholas replies. "They are both alive, and they are both well."

"They're at Rochester." This from Fifer, standing in the shadows by the fireplace, Schuyler by her side. She's wearing a dressing gown pulled over sleep clothes, but she doesn't look as if she's been sleeping. "Waiting to hear word of you."

I don't say anything to this. I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be alive; there should be no word of me because I should be dead. But I can think of none of this now, not after what I know.

"Blackwell's plan." I look to Nicholas. "What he intends to do. Is it possible?"

Nicholas discards that hateful hooded robe, carried off by Hastings's unseen hands, and doesn't answer right away.

"Perhaps," he says finally. "If you'd told me before, I would have said it was but a lark, a far-fetched scheme on his part. He required the Azoth to achieve it; he never would have gotten to it. Not hidden behind my walls, not protected by my spells. Now he has it."

He says this not in accusation but in fact; guilt sickens me anyway.

"And now he needs but one thing to reach his goal, this one far more attainable."

He means John, of course.

"We've got to get to camp," I blurt. "Fitzroy needs to know what's happened so he can rally his men. Protect John. I need to tell him; it's my fault, I'll go-" I get to my feet but stumble as I do, exhaustion pinning me to the floor.

"You will not." Peter takes one arm; Schuyler steps forward to take the other. Instinctively, I flinch from them; their grasp like those of the guards, and of Marcus and Caleb. At this thought Schuyler releases me, but Peter holds fast. "Let's get you upstairs," Peter continues. "Cleaned up. Rested."

"I can't rest," I tell him. "Not now. Not after what I did."

I look to Fifer then, remembering how angry she was with me before I left, how she tried to stop me, how I all but blackmailed her to help me. How she was a friend to me and I was no friend back. To Peter, for once again failing to save his son. To Nicholas, because he put himself in great danger-once again-to save me. This after I lied to him and stole from him, after I lost the Azoth, a great a.s.set that has now become a great threat.

"I'm sorry," I say finally. "I thought I could end this. I thought I could kill Blackwell, but I was wrong. I overestimated my abilities," I add, and it shames me to admit it.

"Perhaps," Peter says with a squeeze to my arm. "But not as much as you underestimated his."

"I don't know what to do," I whisper, as much to myself as to them.

"You are going upstairs with Fifer, as Peter suggested," Nicholas says. "Get some rest. We will speak later, after I've had time to piece through all that has happened."

I don't argue with him; I don't dare. But before I turn from him I say, "Thank you. For coming after me. For risking yourself to save me. Again."

Nicholas rounds on me, swift. Places his hands on my shoulders, his expression grave as he looks at me. For a moment, I fear his anger, his recrimination, all of which I deserve but none of which I want to hear, at least not right now.

"If I have any wish for you," he says, "it is that you understand the value of what you risk. What you do is no longer about you alone. There are no longer people who will simply turn their heads if misfortune were to befall you, no matter how true that may have been in the past. You are not," he adds, in that way of his that makes me think he can read my mind, "replaceable."

Fifer's hand appears on my elbow then, soft and guiding, Schuyler close behind. Peter murmurs to me in a low, comforting tone as Nicholas's words burrow into me, finding their way to truth.

They lead me up the stairs: more plaster and wood, soft floors and tapestries, the occasional oil portrait of rough seas and prancing horses and vases of blooms-no painted kings or battles or weapons here-until we reach a door and the bedchamber beyond, welcoming in pale green and white, too bright for the darkness in my heart.

In the center is a tub already filled with water, steam floating from the top. Beside the bath is a chair stacked with bath sheets, a nightdress, a blanket, and a bowl of what looks like bath salt. That was fast. One of the benefits of a ghost servant, John said to me once.

"I'm going to see about food," Peter says. He smiles, but the strain still shows. "I'll be back soon." Then he and Schuyler step into the hallway, closing the door softly behind them.

"Fifer, I don't-" I start.

"Save it," she says, but there's no malice in her voice. "I'm still angry with you, but I'm more relieved you're not dead. You could have died. You should be dead."

"I know." I drop into a chair beside the fireplace, warm and crackling, and press my head into my hands. "I know."

"Yes. Well." She goes quiet and when I look up at her, she's watching me with an expression I'm not used to seeing from her: worry. "Let's get that dress off you," she says finally, extending a hand and pulling me to my feet. "The stench and the sight of it are unbearable."

It takes a moment; five days of acc.u.mulated filth sticks the fabric to my skin. I watch as Fifer drags it to the fireplace and shoves it inside. With a savage thrust of a fire poker, the grimy brown fabric goes up in flames.

I step into the bath. At once, the water turns dark and murky with dirt. Fifer tosses in a handful of bath salt-what I thought was bath salt-and the grime disappears, winding backward in the water in tendrils before vanis.h.i.+ng entirely. Magic. Then she reaches into the neck of her robe and pulls out her necklace: bra.s.s chain, ampoules filled with salt, quicksilver, and ash.

"I think it best we keep Caleb out of your head from now on." She slips it over my head. "Or anyone else who might be poking around in there. Schuyler told me about that prayer you kept reciting," she adds. "I figure you might be tired of saying it."

I lean back in the bath then, sinking into the warm soothing water. The fatigue I've held off for days rushes back in force and it's a struggle to keep my eyes open.

"What happened?" I ask after a moment. "After Caleb found me and everyone else got out? Did they run into trouble?"

"Schuyler said it was chaos." Fifer clears off the chair and pulls it beside the tub. "Guards pumping water from pipes in the courtyards, staff running around with buckets, people screaming. Everyone thought it was a kitchen fire, so no one was suspicious, at least not at first. But once they saw the blood and then found the bodies..." She pulls her robe against her, tight, as if warding off a chill. "By then, they were far enough away to avoid being caught. They ran full tilt for nearly two days to get here-Malcolm was near vomiting when the Watch found him."

"Were they arrested again?"

"No, although it was close. Malcolm, he was completely out of control. Demanded they go back for you, shouting at people, ordering weapons, horses; he even ordered Fitzroy to give him his army." Fifer tsks. "You'd think a deposed king would be less demanding, but you'd be wrong."

I nod. I don't find this behavior surprising, on or off the throne.

"Eventually, Nicholas had to give him something to calm him down. He slept for twelve hours, only to wake up and start his demands all over again." Another cluck of displeasure. "After you broke in and out of Hexham so easily, Fitzroy and Nicholas decided it was potentially unsafe to send him back, so they put him in Rochester under house arrest."

"What about Keagan?" I say. "Is she being detained, too?"

"Not entirely," Fifer says. "We thought she might be, but the council decided there was no cause to keep her. They released her to go home, back to Airann, but she asked to stay on to help us fight. But she's still an outsider, and a dangerous outsider at that. The council thought it best to restrict her to the grounds at Rochester. She's turning out to be a good ally," Fifer adds. "She's already sent word to the rest of the Order, asking them to join us. Keagan says they're as powerful as she is, if not more. We could use that."

I nod but say nothing, my thoughts already moving on to another prisoner at Hexham. Wondering where he is, if he's safe.

"John is at Rochester, too." Fifer guesses at my silence. "He's being held in a room somewhere in the west wing, but I don't know where. They're not allowing visitors. I haven't seen him, not even Peter has seen him. Only Nicholas and-"

She stops herself, but I already know what she was going to say. The only visitor John has besides Nicholas is Chime.

"Do you know if he's any better?"

Fifer looks down, her long, pale fingers plucking at the hem of her dressing gown. "I don't know." She shrugs. "I keep asking to see him, but Nicholas says it's best if I don't. So I a.s.sume not."

I shake my head. At the utter failure of my plan, at the danger I've put everyone in again: even more danger than they were in before.

"I should never have stayed in Harrow." I close my eyes. I don't want to see Fifer's face, her acknowledgment of this truth. "If I'd left, Blackwell would never have found out I didn't have my stigma. I could have kept the secret, and I could have kept John safe. I could have kept Blackwell on the run until the curse and his weakness eventually killed him."

"Do you really believe that?" Fifer's tone is so fierce I have to open my eyes and look at her. "Do you really think it would have been that easy? Knowing Blackwell's goal now, do you really believe you would have been able to outrun him on your own? Alone? With no power? That Caleb wouldn't have picked your mind clean and eventually led Blackwell here?"

"I don't know," I say.

"I think you do."

I take a breath then. Everything I know, and everything I don't, war with each other until I'm left with the casualty of knowing nothing at all.

"What now?" I say. "What happens now?"

"I think you know that, too."

I do. Blackwell will learn the truth about my stigma, he will come after John, after Harrow. He would have anyway, but now, with this provocation, it will be different. The attacks we've had, they were coquettes compared to what's coming. They will not be skirmishes; there will be no delay.

"It was always going to come to this," Fifer says. "And there's nothing you can do to stop it."

I MOVE BACK TO ROCHESTER. Nicholas wanted me to stay in his home, for a few more days at least, to recover. But you don't recover from Blackwell's devices. You absorb them. Shuffle them around, make room for them within a catalog already full of horrors until, eventually, you find a place for them. A place that is never hidden, but one day you hope will be just out of reach.

Nicholas escorts me back to camp, a silent guard against the stares and whispers of the others who fall still when they see us. Me, wrapped in a long green velvet cloak but still s.h.i.+vering under a cloudless blue sky; and Nicholas, a soothing but stalwart presence in robes of gold and ivory, threading us through the grounds.

Despite efforts to contain them, the details of my disappearance-and subsequent reappearance-spread like a virus through the camp. Everyone knows where I went, what I did, what happened to me, how I was brought back. News travels fast in Harrow, just as Gareth said.

Rings of white tents stretch out before me, flapping in the breeze like canvas sails. I veer toward mine, inner ring five, when Nicholas holds out a hand to stop me.

"Malcolm has requested your presence," he tells me. "It is your choice to refuse, of course, and I have made him no promises either way. We have pa.s.sed along the message that you are here, and you are safe, but I think part of him won't believe it until he sees it for himself."

I hesitate. It was my plan to install myself back in my tent, then back in the pits; to run myself ragged with training both to atone for the things I've done and to prepare for the things Blackwell is about to do. But a visit to Malcolm is inevitable, and a small part of me wishes to see him for myself, too, to make sure he is as well as I've been told.

"Yes," I say. "I'll see him."

Nicholas takes me to the west wing of Rochester Hall, even grander than the east. Golden coffered ceilings, red-and-gold-brocaded walls fixed with miles of gold-framed oil paintings. Marble busts of Cranbourne Calthorpe-Goughs stare at me from pedestals, all of them awash in light from floor-to-ceiling windows framed by swaths of rich red velvet.

Guards line the many doorways, but I already know which door leads to the room where Malcolm is being held: Five men mill before it, none of them looking pleased. They snap to attention as we approach, pikes clanging to let us through.

Inside, Fitzroy and Malcolm sit at a small table by the window overlooking a garden and the lush forest beyond. Silver trays, crystal goblets, and pewter plates filled with food line the surface. Malcolm looks up from his untouched plate, sees me, and scrambles from his chair.

"Elizabeth." His linen napkin flutters from his lap to the floor. "You're here."

In the past, when he would greet me this way, I would always curtsy. I almost do at present. But the impulse pa.s.ses and I dip my head instead.

"I was told you wished to see me," I say. I'm aware of every eye in the room on us both.

"I did. I do," Malcolm says. He seems unaware of anything but me. "Would you care to eat? You must be hungry. Or perhaps drink..." He looks around as if he's expecting servants to leap forward to do his bidding, still surprised they don't.

Fitzroy saves us both from embarra.s.sment. "Today is Sunday." He untucks himself from the table and turns to Nicholas, standing firmly by my side. "I understand they're roasting boar today. Not just one, mind, but an entire herd caught only last night, a spectacle I wouldn't mind seeing for myself. Perhaps you'd care to join me, Nicholas?"

Fitzroy gestures toward the door, but Nicholas smiles, apologetic. "Would that I could say yes! But I am Elizabeth's servant today, and I wish to see her settled safely in her tent."

"It's all right," I tell him, warming at his protection. "I can see myself there shortly. Or perhaps I'll meet you at the boars? I'd like to offer my thanks-and condolences-to the cooks who had to dress them."

Nicholas smiles at this, then glances at Malcolm. His dark gaze holds Malcolm's pale one, and if I'm not mistaken, I see a flash of warning there. Then he and Fitzroy step out into the hall. The door slips shut and Malcolm turns to me.

"You're here." A faltering smile. "I know, I said that already. Are you well? Do you care to sit?" He rushes to Fitzroy's chair, holds it out for me.

"I'm fine," I say, a slender and abridged truth. "I'll stand."

Malcolm nods, his smile disappearing. "It was a frightening moment, there in Ravenscourt. So much magic. And to see Caleb like that..." He shakes his head. "I get news slowly here, you know. No one is rus.h.i.+ng to tell me anything, which is understandable, of course. But Fitzroy told me everything regardless. Everything you went through..." Malcolm breaks off and I break in; I don't wish to relive it, not at all, but especially not with him.

"I see you and Fitzroy are on a first-name basis." I change the subject. "Is that because you're familiar, or because you've grown tired of saying his surnames? Or perhaps you've forgotten them."

"As someone with three given names, I understand what a disadvantage that can be. But to answer your question, we settled on first names mostly because Fitzroy didn't know what else to call me." His smile is back. "Although I suppose he could simply call me captain."

"Captain?" I repeat. "You?"

"Indeed. Of my very own fledgling army." Malcolm steps back, sweeps a hand toward a table on the other side of the room. It's covered in maps and parchment, chess pieces scattered across both. "Turns out a deposed king can come in handy, particularly when said deposed king learned battle strategy from the very king who usurped him." A pause. "That wasn't too maudlin, was it?"

I almost smile. "Not at all."

"Good. I've been working on it. Fitzroy said I was irritating when I got that way. Called me stroppy! He's as bad as Keagan. No respect." He says this last part in a put-on, lofty tone, and now I do smile.

"He's taught me a great deal about Harrow, and the people who live here. I'm glad for the knowledge, more so than the embarra.s.sment of not having it before."

"Such as?"

"Reformists," he begins. "I thought they all practiced witchcraft, or at least had magical leanings. Not so. I'd say half the troops at camp are without magic. Neutral, Nicholas calls them. Funny word. In any case, since they don't have any magic to rely on, and since half of that half have never held a sword in their life, they've offered them to me to train."

"So you're in charge of all of them?"