While Beauty Slept (41 page)

“She must leave at once!” he bellowed.

Queen Lenore spoke with a peculiar calm. “When you hear the full story, you will understand why I acted as I did.”

“What story?”

“How Millicent helped us win the war.”

King Ranolf looked as appalled as I felt.

“I have been in correspondence with her for some time,” Queen Lenore explained. “I know it was wrong not to tell you, but I feared this very reaction.”

Some time?
My stomach knotted, and I stared at the queen in horrified wonder. How could she keep such a secret from us? And why?

King Ranolf glared down at his wife, body tensed like that of a cat preparing to pounce. “All these years spent searching for traitors,” he murmured, his voice icy cold, “when the worst betrayal was here, before me, all along.” Tossing aside his self-control, he roared with rage and kicked the chair next to his wife’s, sending it careening across the room. Queen Lenore flinched as if the blow had been aimed her way, and I cowered against the wall.

“She begged my forgiveness,” the queen said hesitantly, bracing herself for another blow. “She was near death, in fear of meeting her Maker. Does the Bible not tell us that every sinner deserves a chance at salvation?”

“It was Father Gabriel’s doing,” I interjected, etiquette be damned. “I believe he was sent by Millicent to act on her behalf.”

Queen Lenore brushed off my suspicions with a quick shake of her head. “Of course not. He is driven only by his service to God.”

She would never believe in their collusion without proof, and I had none.

“What lies did Millicent tell you?” King Ranolf asked.

“She said she would prove her loyalty. She has spent time among the Brithnians, as you know, and she is the one who persuaded them to take our side.”

“Nonsense! We paid them well to fight with us. Sir Walthur was in contact with their ministers for weeks to make the arrangements.”

“Do you think the deRauleys did not offer payment as well? Millicent had the king of Brithnia’s ear, ever since she cured his son of a wasting illness some years ago. Without her entreaties the Brithnians would have continued to play us against the deRauleys, taking gold from both sides while keeping their soldiers safely at home.”

The king’s thunderous expression did not soften, but he considered his wife’s words without protest.

“I will never forget what Millicent has done to us or the threats she made to Rose,” Queen Lenore said. “But can you not see? Without forgiveness there is no peace.”

So this was the culmination of Father Gabriel’s teachings: Queen Lenore was to gain her redemption by forgiving Millicent her sins. Already I could see the difference in her manner. Serenity had replaced the agitation that had tormented her for so long, and she spoke with the confidence of true belief. Her hands were clasped demurely in her lap, but my eyes were caught by the subtle movement of a thumb rubbing absently back and forth along the skin of the opposite wrist. Feeling the spot where Millicent’s knife had dug into her flesh.

Seventeen years, nearly all of Rose’s lifetime, had passed since the king banished Millicent from the castle, yet her hold over the queen had not lifted. I had long since discounted the notion that black magic had brought about Rose’s birth. Yet what could explain Queen Lenore’s continued allegiance to a woman who had vowed to see her family dead? It was as if a malevolent force had entered the open wound when her skin was cut open, a spirit whose commands she could not defy.

“Millicent has one dying wish: to spend her last days here, in the only home she has ever known.”

The king came very close to refusing. But after so much loss, so much hurt, he no longer had the heart to battle his wife. Heva had told me, in confidence, that King Ranolf had slept in the queen’s bed every night since his return, often waking with shouts from bloody dreams. Perhaps that is why he surrendered to her wishes in the end, to retain the comfort of her presence during those long hours before dawn.

“She will be confined to her room, under guard,” the king said at last. “And Father Gabriel is to be sent on his way immediately.”

Queen Lenore tried to defend the man in whom she had placed such trust, but the king halted her words with a stamp of his foot.

“He’s had his clutches in you long enough! From now on you live by my counsel, and no one else’s. That is the price I demand for Millicent’s return.”

Queen Lenore bowed her head, a saint accepting the terms of her martyrdom.

“Mrs. Tewkes can see to Millicent’s care,” King Ranolf muttered. “She is never to cross my path. Ever.”

“As you wish. You will not know she is here.”

The queen believed that such a promise could be kept. But it was not long before Millicent’s presence would be felt throughout the castle. By opening the door to her, Queen Lenore had ushered in our doom.

Sixteen

EVIL UNLEASHED

T
he return of his nemesis did not dissuade the king from celebrating his victory over the rebels. If anything, Millicent’s presence spurred him to make a public show of strength. The day after her arrival, he presided over a lavish feast, and once more the Great Hall echoed with music and the clamor of a hundred conversations. The celebration was more subdued than parties of the past, as the royal family was officially in mourning for Sir Hugill and the many other nobles lost, all of whom were spoken of movingly in toasts that extended well into the night. The king and queen handed out jewels and gold to knights who had distinguished themselves on the battlefield, a good number of them limping to the dais to receive their tokens. Queen Lenore put aside her usual drab clothing in favor of an elegant cream-colored gown, a sign, I hoped, that she was freeing herself at last from Father Gabriel’s influence. According to Mrs. Tewkes, the monk had been escorted to the castle gates at first light and was last seen boarding a boat at the harbor, offering prayers of gratitude for his safe deliverance from the king’s wrath.

Rose graced the younger knights with flirtatious smiles, flaunting the mischievousness she had suppressed since the war began. Lady Wintermale and others of her tradition-bound temperament looked on disapprovingly, but I saw no reason that Rose should shed false tears for an intended husband she had never met. Just as I could not condemn the recently widowed women who gulped down goblet after goblet of wine, losing themselves in frantic laughter or sobs. We all have our own ways of stumbling through grief.

And stumble I did. I moved through those days with a muddled mind, unsure how to complete the simplest tasks. Even my fear of Millicent barely broke through the fog; she was unseen and unacknowledged, a challenge to be confronted another day, when I had the strength. I lay for hours in the bedroom I still thought of as Dorian’s, not my own, running my fingers over the jeweled handle of his dagger, crying myself to sleep while clutching a shirt that still retained a trace of his musky scent. I dined with Sir Walthur, making clumsy attempts at conversation, always aware what a poor substitute I made for his son. I wondered how much longer we could bear to share the same chambers without Dorian to bind us together.

Most of the nobles who fell in the north were laid to rest in their home parishes, but high-ranking men who resided at the castle were remembered with services in the Royal Chapel. The one exception was Dorian. As Sir Walthur’s son and the knight who had saved King Ranolf’s life, he was deemed worthy of a funeral in the cathedral of St. Elsip and buried with honor in a crypt near the altar. Sir Walthur and I had gratefully accepted Mrs. Tewkes’s offer to make the arrangements, and the ritual was a fitting farewell to a beloved hero.

I could not cry. A few in the crowd might have admired my fortitude, but no doubt the rest felt cheated of a suitable display of mourning, distraught widows being essential to any proper funeral. I listened to Bible passages that compared Dorian to King David, and I watched my husband’s casket, swathed in purple and green velvet, carried along the aisle. I placed one of my handkerchiefs inside the folds when the procession paused before me. It was the token I should have given him on the day he rode into battle. Instead it would accompany him on his final journey. I felt tears swell only once, when the herald who served under Dorian’s command played a trumpet salute in his patron’s honor.

The rest was empty spectacle. It was just the sort of formal affair that had tempted Dorian into irreverence when he was alive; I remembered sitting in the Royal Chapel the year before, at the funeral for an aged courtier, as Dorian whispered gossip about the old man’s penchant for good-looking male servants. Had his wishes been taken into account, I knew that Dorian would have preferred to be buried amid drinking and dancing, with his friends competing to share the most outrageous accounts of his bad behavior. Instead his friends—those who lived—sat silent and stone-faced in their pews. Without their leader they were lost.

The funeral was followed by an equally somber midday meal in the Great Hall. When King Ranolf made a toast to Dorian, Sir Walthur blinked furiously, forbidding his tears to fall. Grand ladies who had once shunned me took my hand and murmured in sympathy; those who had been widowed welcomed me mournfully to our shared sisterhood of grief. At the end of the meal, I stood to take leave of the king and queen, and Rose leapt from her seat and rushed to my side. She threw her arms around my shoulders and clung to me, as if passing her youthful strength into my worn body.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked. Her eyes and nose were reddened and raw; any stranger would have thought
her
the grieving widow.

“I do not know,” I said, my mind blank. All I could think to do was lie in my bed, hoping to be overtaken by sleep’s oblivion.

“You could come with me if you like. Mother has offered to have new gowns made up, and I would be grateful for your advice.”

New gowns! It seemed a lifetime since anyone had given a thought to such frivolous things. But Queen Lenore was wise to provide her daughter such a distraction. For the first time since Dorian’s death, I felt the urge to smile.

“I am no paragon of fashion,” I said, “but I would be happy to have a look.”

I realized as I said the words that they were true. Chattering about clothes would be an escape from the melancholy of Sir Walthur’s apartments, an escape from my own misery. I could surrender to despair, forever mourning the family I had lost, or I could look forward, for Rose’s sake. One glance at her sweet, concerned face and the choice was made.

She clutched my hands in hers, leaning in to speak in confidence. “I have been working on a new poem, celebrating Dorian’s sacrifice. I hope to offer it as a gift to you one day.”

Touched beyond words, I hugged her, hiding my tears in her hair. How delighted Dorian would have been, seeing himself immortalized in a heroic tale! There would be no end to his bragging. I could hear him speak as clearly as if he stood at my side, good-naturedly mocking my tears:
What now, wife? This is no way to celebrate a valiant soldier!

I was forever grateful for that brief sound of his voice, for it acted as a strong shoulder pressed against my back, nudging me away from grief. Whenever I felt myself falter and weaken, I would remember Dorian’s mocking smile, his impatience with those who wallowed in self-pity. If my husband were to live on as a hero, I must mold myself into a widow worthy of his reputation.

Rose’s company was further balm to my spirit. Her laughter and blushes at the feast signaled an end to the brooding that had overtaken her during the war, and I encouraged her girlish fancies. However, she continued to retreat to her room for hours at a time, alone, and I felt uneasy at the thought of her walking those isolated halls unchaperoned. That protectiveness was the reason I snapped at Besslin, her maid, when I saw her giggling with a group of equally silly housemaids in the Lower Hall late one afternoon.

“Should you not be preparing your mistress for supper?” I demanded sharply.

She shrugged, unconcerned. “She told me she’d dress herself.”

Rose preferred to wear her hair loose, cascading over her shoulders, and she favored simple gowns. I did not doubt she could make herself presentable without assistance, but I was irritated by Besslin’s insolent manner.

“Never mind what she told you. Your place is upstairs, in case she has need of you.”

“My mistress gave me the rest of the day off.” Besslin grinned, delighted to prove me wrong.

Rose was no longer a girl. She was free to order her maid about as she pleased. Yet I hurried my steps toward her room. With the kingdom at peace and the king safe, I had thought she would no longer need to close herself off. If her mind remained troubled, perhaps she would confide in me.

I knocked lightly on Rose’s door and stepped inside, but there was no response when I called out her name. Both the sitting room and the bedchamber were empty. I was about to leave and search for Rose elsewhere when something caught my eye along the wall behind her bed. A hanging tapestry had been pushed aside, revealing a previously hidden panel that had been pulled outward. I peered inside, breathing in the stale, clammy odor of a crypt, and saw a set of narrow, twisted steps. Hesitantly, I followed them downward into the darkness, fearing what I would find at the bottom.

I emerged into a room one flight below, a room I had not entered for years but remembered instantly. Before me was a tableau that froze me with dread: Beautiful, vibrant Rose sitting on Millicent’s ornate bed, her eyes bright with excitement. Beside her a hunched, desiccated figure swathed in a threadbare green cape. And at their feet a spinning wheel.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, staring at Rose.

“Elise,” she said carefully, taken aback by my harsh tone, “surely you know my great-aunt Millicent?”

“Indeed she does.” The words came garbled from Millicent’s toothless mouth, but the imperiousness of her voice was immediately familiar.

“Aunt Millicent has been telling me of the olden days at court,” Rose said. “She remembers when this tower was built.”