Page 97 of The Ragpicker King
Kel’s mind was in a whirl. It was clear that Antonetta had told her mother nothing about her own trip to Tyndaris, that she had not revealed to Lady Alleyne her own knowledge of Gremont’s death. “I swear it,” he said. “Why would I have come here if I knew where she was? Just to be insulted? But then I suppose you imagine thoseof my stationenjoy it.”
A look of real concern passed across Lady Alleyne’s face; it had nothing whatsoever to do with Kel. He was not even sure she had registered his words beyond understanding he did not know the location of her daughter.
“Then... where is she?” she said. “With some other friend?”
“I cannot imagine,” he said, holding Antonetta’s note out to her. His stomach churned. Did Lady Alleyne really know so little about her own daughter that she did not realize there was no one on the Hill whom Antonetta really counted as a friend?
Which was a terrifying thought. He tried to tell himself that perhaps she had fled to Sancia Vasey’s, but he could not make himself believe it. Sowhere was she?
“Ask the Prince,” said Lady Alleyne, snatching the note from him. “If anyone can discover where she has hidden herself—”
“No,” Kel said. The rage and terror swirled inside him like a rising whirlpool; he could not force it down, any more than he could stop himself from saying what he knew he should not say: “So Conor can have her dragged back under your thumb? You forcedyour daughter into an engagement with a man she hates, a man who has done nothing but humiliate her with his repeated trips to brothels in the city, and who plans to humiliate her only more greatly with the ceremony of the First Night.”
A look of shock passed over Liorada’s face, but she was made of stern stuff. The steel in Antonetta’s veins had its roots in her mother, even if in Lady Alleyne those roots were twisted.
Lady Alleyne raised her chin, her look of contempt washing over Kel like dirty water. “My daughter will always have the finest things in life,” she snapped. “I have seen to that.” Her voice curdled. “Not thatyouwould understand. You live off the royal blood. You will never understand the meaning of responsibility or what it means to sacrifice for another.”
“Sacrifice?” Kel bit back. “It has always been my understanding that for a sacrifice to have meaning, you must surrender something that matters toyou.Not sacrifice your own daughter in your stead.”
At that, she flinched, and Kel felt a savage pleasure in having hurt her. A pleasure born in the pain of a fifteen-year-old boy who had just been told he had nothing to offer the girl he loved and should stay away from her for her own good.
Lady Alleyne’s lips pressed into a thin line. “My daughter will return. She is being foolish and stubborn, that is all. And when shedoesreturn, I want you to remember that nothing has changed. Keep away from her, Anjuman.”
Kel allowed himself the ghost of a smile. “If Artal Gremont wishes me to stay away from his fiancée, he can tell me that himself. Can’t he?”
For a moment, a look like fear passed over Lady Alleyne’s features. Then she slammed the door in Kel’s face.
As the carriage rolled smoothly up the Hill toward Marivent, Lin clenched her hands in her lap. She could sense her heart beating in her palms. She knew, of course, that it wasn’t really her heartbeatshe felt. The vessels that carried blood through the body were near the surface only in certain places, like the wrist and throat. But the body in distress was like a broken mirror, casting strange reflections: A wound on one side of the body might be felt on the other, or agony might still register in an amputated limb. Aron’s words had burrowed under her skin like poison or a sickness.
She had accepted the fact that when Aron looked at her, he did not recognize the Goddess. That he saw she was only ordinary, and perhaps worse than ordinary—silly, a liar, desperate for attention. It had made her squirm inside.
But now he said he saw fire in her. Whether it was the true fire of the Goddess she could not say, but the thought frightened her almost as much as what he had said next. Was the flame he saw some residue of the magic she’d been doing? A sort of bright reflection of her Source-Stone? But then—
Around you I see only darkness.
What darkness could he be seeing? She did not for a moment doubt he sawsomething.He was the Exilarch, the Lion of Judah. Almost unconsciously, she reached into her sleeve, where the brooch with her stone was pinned. The stone was cool to the touch, inert and empty of magic.
She bit her lip as they entered the Palace through the North Gate. The first time she had come to Marivent had been like stepping into a Story-Spinner tale. Now she was beginning to know the place: the Castel Mitat and its courtyard in the center, the towers at each cardinal point, the Little Palace among the gardens, the walking paths near the cliff’s edge, where the sea crashed below, sending up spray like an invading army climbing the rocks.
The chaos in her mind had quieted by the time the carriage halted at the North Tower and she let Jolivet lead her up the stairs. She knew how to set aside whatever troubled her so she could concentrate on a patient. And as for her most important patient—Mariam—all that mattered was making Mariam well before the Exilarch and the Sanhedrin could stop her.
They reached the landing. She scrambled to make sure she had her satchel, her notebook, then nodded at the head of the Arrow Squadron. “It would be better if I went in alone,” she said. “To see the patient.”
“The patient,” Jolivet said. He managed to make the two words sound unexpectedly grim. He was an odd man, the Legate, gray and severe apart from the blood-red signet ring on his hand. “You may be alone with him if you like. Good luck to you. He’s been in a wild mood these past days.”
Lin tried to picture the silent, staring King in a wild mood. “I see. Thank you. For the warning.”
“I will await you on the landing.” Jolivet did not look at her as he unlocked the tower room door. Lin’s stomach was clenched with tension, but there was nothing for it. She went past Jolivet into the King’s chamber and heard the door close behind her with an ominousclick.
At first glance, everything seemed unchanged. Items of the astronomer’s science still littered every surface: bronze astrolabes, cosmological maps, gold and ebony octants, a brass torquetum from the time of the Empire. And, of course, the scorch marks on the walls she had noticed before.
The King sat, as he had previously, in the great wooden chair beside the casement window. As she approached slowly, mindful of Jolivet’s warning, she noticed something odd about the window itself—the glass seemed warped, as if there were a flaw in it. But she did not remember a flaw...
As she drew closer, she saw that the glass was not warped but scratched. Gouged, in fact; narrow channels were dug deep into the clear material. They created the impression that the view beyond, of the Palace and the sea, was of a countryside that had itself been damaged. Lin could see a row of white plaster follies shaped like miniature buildings—a cottage, a farmhouse, a temple—standing guard at the edge of the sea cliffs. The damaged glass made the pillars of the temple folly seem broken, and the Trick, rising in the distance, seemed riven with pale scars.
If the King, staring out the window, noticed any of this, he gave no sign. He sat still as a statue, robed in gray and black. He wore no crown, but the omnipresent dark gloves were, as ever, firmly on his hands.
“Your Highness,” Lin said quietly. “I am your physician. I have come to examine you.”
