Sixteen

EVIL UNLEASHED

The 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.”

“Rose’s room was intended to be a nursery,” Millicent said. Her skin was sallow and her red-rimmed eyes watery; whatever remnants of past beauty her face had once carried had long since vanished. “Wasn’t it clever of my father to build that hidden staircase, so a mother could check on her child when she pleased?”

“It was quite a surprise when she knocked!” Rose exclaimed. “Mother told me Aunt Millicent was too ill to receive visitors, but clearly that’s not the case. She has been showing me all sorts of wondrous things.”

Smiling at me, eyes gleaming, Millicent waved one hand toward the spinning wheel. “Can you believe that Rose has never seen one?”

Sick at how easily Millicent had gained Rose’s trust, I tried to suppress my rising panic.

“Guards!” I called out.

Rose stared at me, uncomprehending. Two men appeared in the doorway behind me, waiting for instructions. But what could I say? How could I explain that this seemingly harmless domestic scene terrified me?

“Why should an old woman not pass her days in useful labor?” Millicent asked with exaggerated innocence. “These guards made no objection when I asked a maid to bring me this wheel.”

Of course not. They were too young to remember Millicent’s hateful words at Rose’s baptism. They had not seen the towering bonfire that lit up the sky that night.

“Isn’t it the most curious thing?” Rose exclaimed, reaching out to feel the curved wood.

I leapt forward, shouting, “Don’t touch it!”—but my sudden exclamation threw off her balance, and she slipped. Her hand flew forward, toward the wheel, and I saw blood burst from her fingertip as it collided with the sharp, pointed spindle. She pulled back with a whimper, and Millicent opened her arms to welcome her in.

Driven by a fear so visceral it banished all thought, I screamed and ran forward. I pushed Millicent away from Rose, and she fell back upon the bed. Rose leapt up, calling out my name, but I shut her out. My hands, moving as if by their own accord, gripped Millicent’s bony upper arms to hold her in check.

“Is this how you would treat a poor old woman,” she whined, “still grieving her sister’s death? What a sad tale Rose recounted! Is it true the name of dear Flora’s long-lost love was on her lips as she died?”

Anger surged through me at the sight of Millicent’s triumphant face. I had told Rose the story of Flora’s death in confidence, yet she had been quick enough to share it with this old crone. A woman who had driven her sister to the edge of madness.

“Flora told me all,” I spat out, my voice rising with ever-increasing hysteria. “How you seduced the man she loved and drove him to his death. You could not have him for yourself, so you destroyed both of them. An innocent man and your own sister!”

“Elise!”

Rose tugged at my arm, trying to pull me away. I was dimly aware of the people gathering outside the door, drawn by the commotion, witnessing my madness. But I did not care. All that mattered was that I keep Rose safe.

“Go upstairs!” I ordered. “Now!”

Rose slunk off with a resentful pout. I abruptly dropped my grasp on Millicent’s arms and watched as she slid in a jumble of limbs onto the floor before me.

“You are never to see Rose again!” I shouted. “Never!”

Millicent shot me a grimace that mixed pain and exultation. Her mouth moved, and I braced myself for a barrage of curses. Instead she laughed, a horrible taunt that echoed around me in that enclosed space. A sound that reminded me why she had once been called a witch.

I ordered one of the guards to keep watch over Millicent from inside the room and the other to fetch a mason to wall over the entrance to the hidden staircase. They looked at each other, unsure.

“Consult with the king if you wish!” I exclaimed. “Only do not delay! Hurry!”

Once it was clear that my demands would be heeded, I rushed upstairs to Rose’s room. I nearly crashed into her at the top of the passage, where she had been perched, eavesdropping.

“Elise?” she demanded, wavering between anger and concern.

I grabbed Rose’s hand and frantically scoured it for signs that the prick had allowed poison to enter her body. I found nothing. Her skin was as clear and smooth as ever, a single red dot the only evidence of what had transpired downstairs.

“You must never allow that woman into your presence again,” I said firmly.

“Why not? She’s old and sick. I felt sorry for her, left to rot alone.”

“She does not deserve your kindness.”

“Because she and my father quarreled years ago?” Rose scoffed. “Surely enough time has passed for them to put things to rights.”

God help me, I came close to shaking her. How dare she speak of the break between Millicent and her father as a trivial disagreement! Then I realized: She does not know. I had thought Millicent’s return to the castle would prompt her parents to recount the events of her baptism. Yet Rose remained coddled and ignorant, so oblivious to danger that she had willingly entered Millicent’s room. What might have happened if I had not come along?

“Millicent was banished for cursing your family, shortly after you were born,” I said quietly. “She wished for your death.”

Seeing Rose’s bewildered face, I feared I had been too blunt. One who grows up knowing only love could never understand such hatred.

“Why?” she asked.

Much as I wanted to help her, there were some stories better left untold. “Millicent thought your mother should heed her words over those of your father.” It was hardly a satisfying explanation, but true enough. “She is a cruel, vindictive woman. And more dangerous than you know.”

“Does she wish me dead still?” Rose’s voice trembled.

It would be a kindness to quell her fears. Yet the truth would keep her safer.

“I do not know. I would not be surprised if she did. Your mother has chosen to show Millicent mercy, but I will not. Stay away from her, far away. I will have the entrance to this staircase bricked over, to keep you safe.”

Rose nodded slowly.

“I doubt she will trouble you again,” I offered as reassurance. “From the looks of her, she’s not long for this world.”

I remembered hearing those same words long ago, when the king brought news of Millicent’s escape to Brithnia. It was said she had gone there to die, yet she lived on. Would she linger here as well, plotting a destruction we could not imagine?

The king would have to be informed of Millicent’s intrusion, but I hoped to keep the news from Queen Lenore, whose mind was greatly troubled in those days over the fate of the war’s wounded soldiers. While families of good standing had dispatched carriages to fetch their injured fathers and husbands, those of humble birth were sent to the stables, where they clutched their bloodstained bandages and groaned in agony. By the time the last stragglers arrived, close to a hundred men lay head to foot along the floor, almost covering the straw beneath them from view. A few servants were ordered to bring hot soup and tend to wounds as best they could, but otherwise the injured were left to suffer alone.

Over the king’s objections, Queen Lenore had insisted on visiting the makeshift sickroom. The soldiers took great heart from the sight of her walking among them, asking after each man’s family and offering words of cheer. She summoned Mr. Gungen and conferred with him on measures to improve the men’s comfort: straw-filled pallets, hot water, clean blankets. From then on she requested daily reports of their progress and wrote personal letters of condolence to the families of the dead, a task that took up more time with each passing day.

“So many lost,” she lamented. “I thought our care would hasten their recovery. Yet they die, one after another.”

I could not summon suitably reassuring words, for I, too, had felt the same dejection. That very morning, hearing a commotion from the back courtyard, I had peered out from my room and seen the bodies of those who had died in the night being carried out from the stables, rigid statues wrapped in white linen. I counted twelve in all, loaded onto carts and pulled in a solemn procession through the courtyard. These dead farmers, tradesmen, and servants would be denied the ceremony granted Dorian; they would join their fellow fighters in a common grave, laid to rest with a few rushed prayers from the castle priest. As they passed, I saw groomsmen leading a pair of the king’s stallions into the building. With such numbers dying, there would be space enough soon for the royal horses to resume their places.

The grim news from the stables was not spoken of openly, but I heard the whispers from servants and courtiers alike. More men died than recovered. The stench inside had become unbearable, and maids were refusing to touch the men’s now-festering wounds. A few even balked at delivering their food until Mrs. Tewkes threatened to have them dismissed.

Even then I did not suspect what was to come. I did not see the suffering soldiers firsthand or think their fates in any way entwined with mine. There was no grand premonition of doom on the day I lingered in a Lower Hall storeroom, considering rolls of fabric for Rose’s new dresses. Merely a gentle tug at my sleeve from a young maid.

“Excuse me, madam?”

I was still occasionally taken aback when servants treated me as a mistress rather than as one of their own. I turned to see a thin, pinch-faced girl who introduced herself as Liya.

“Mrs. Tewkes charged me with seeing to Lady Millicent’s meals,” she said. “Since yesterday she has refused to eat, and her room smells something awful. I think she’s soiled her bedsheets, but she won’t have me change them.”

So Millicent’s time had come at last. Here was a death I would not mourn.

“Speak to Mrs. Tewkes,” I said dismissively. “She will tell you what to do.”

The maid nodded. “I would not have troubled you, only she asked for Princess Rose by name. She said the time had come to make her final farewells.”

The old witch was making trouble to the last. “She is not to see the princess under any circumstances,” I said sternly. “Ignore her pleas.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As I sorted through the bundles of cloth, fingering each piece to gauge its quality, I could not rid myself of the suspicion that Millicent planned some further deception. Was she using illness as a ruse to draw Rose to her bedside? I would not be at peace until I saw for myself what state she was in. I left the Lower Hall and took the main staircase to the North Tower, my steps echoing across the marble expanse. How many times had I followed this same route to Flora’s room in happier days! Then I had hurried ahead in eager anticipation; now each pace was weighted with dread. The two guards at Millicent’s door nodded and unlocked the latch at my request.

The large windows, which gave the North Tower rooms their expansive character, had been covered with dark curtains that shut out all light. Without a lamp it was difficult to see more than an arm’s length before me. I could make out the shape of Millicent’s bed, with a chamber pot on the floor beside it. What lay on top, unmoving, was unclear. I could be staring at a person, but it could just as well have been a jumble of linens. A nauseating stench assaulted me, inescapable even when I breathed through my mouth to spare my nose. Anyone who grows up on a farm cannot be dainty when it comes to earthy aromas, and I was never the sort to wave a perfumed handkerchief before my face every time I entered a stable. The smell of excrement mixed with blood was not enough to weaken me. There was something else, an underlying, tangy, bitterness.

The scent of decay.

Had anything less than Rose’s life been at stake, I would have fled. Slowly, I made my way toward the bed, forcing each step, until the lump on the mattress revealed itself to be a human figure. The ridges of legs were visible underneath a thin blanket; skeletal hands clutched at the stained fabric. She lay on her back, her profile motionless, until I stood by her side. Her face turned, each movement an agony. As her features were gradually revealed, I found myself staring at a monster.

Millicent’s weathered skin had been conquered by pus-filled sores that disfigured her once fine features, and sweat matted her white hair flat against her head. Her cheekbones and eye sockets protruded ghoulishly, showing the shape of the skull beneath, and her lips were pulled back in a grimace. Each breath in and out was labored, choked by the blood that trickled from her mouth. Her eyes, fixed upon me, were red and burning, a stare that held nothing but hatred.

She laughed, the taunt of a victor who has won a hard-fought battle. For Millicent saw from my face that I knew what disease had befallen her. She had taken her revenge on the king at last, bringing devastation to his very doorstep. She rejoiced in her suffering, knowing that her death would be the death of us all.

I had entered the room brimming with righteous anger, yet her cackle shattered my resolve. I turned and ran, desperate to distance myself from the creature she had become, my thoughts whirling. I had to find the king. I had to tell him what I had seen. I remembered the soldiers, dying despite Queen Lenore’s concern for their care. I saw my mother’s face, cruelly disfigured, in her final moments. My mind battled against these visions, the progression of logic leading me to one conclusion while I hoped desperately to be proved wrong.

When I arrived at the Council Chamber, I found only Sir Walthur and one of the court scribes inside. If Sir Walthur noted the frantic edge to my voice when I asked after the king, he did not acknowledge it, telling me to look in the queen’s rooms before turning back to his papers. Sir Walthur had always been diligent in his duties, but now he rarely left the Council Chamber other than to take his meals. I thought his frequent absences from our family apartments a clear sign that he preferred not to share my company. Had I been wiser in the ways of grief, I would have understood that Sir Walthur was avoiding not me but memories of his dead son.

I found the king and queen seated near the windows of her sitting room. I could not remember the last time I had seen them together thus, engrossed in private conversation. With the weight of war thrown off, the king had regained a measure of health, and his face had lost the haunted look it carried on his return from battle. Though I could not hear his words, they had coaxed a smile from Queen Lenore, one that widened when she caught sight of me. The happiness of her welcome almost broke my heart.

“Elise,” she said, waving me over. “You know how long Rose has begged to travel beyond the kingdom’s borders. The king agrees that this might be a suitable time to undertake such an excursion. Can you imagine her face when we tell her?”

It had been so very long since I had seen the queen look toward the future with happy anticipation. It sickened me to cut her short with my dreadful news.

“I have come from Millicent’s room. She is close to death.”

“You bring good tidings, then,” the king said with a smile, but Queen Lenore shook her head quickly.

Though I had planned to couch my suspicions in carefully chosen words, I found I could only speak the truth. In my heart I knew what had befallen Millicent. I had seen the same signs before.

“She has the pox.”

Queen Lenore’s eyes widened, but the king’s expression remained unchanged.

“Nonsense. She’s a sick old woman. It is her time.”

“Sir, with my greatest respect, you have not seen her. Her skin is covered in boils, and she is bleeding from her mouth and nose. My mother died of the pox, and she had exactly these afflictions. I had it myself. I know.”

I saw the shock of it in their faces, the fear that raced in the wake of my announcement.

“The soldiers,” I said, turning to face Queen Lenore. “I fear they have been stricken as well.”

“Impossible. I have been told that pox turns the skin black and swells up the body. I saw no such disfigurements.”

“It can take different forms. The surest sign is the boils. When you visited, did you see eruptions on any of the men’s skin?”

Worry began to cloud her eyes. “They had been sleeping outside, on the ground. Insect bites, I thought—”

The king interrupted, angry, as if by saying the words I had brought this affliction upon them. “We’ve had no pox in these parts for years!”

“Millicent came to us from Brithnia,” I said. “Our soldiers have been struck after fighting at the Brithnians’ side. Perhaps their men brought it with them into battle.”

Faced with disaster on his doorstep, King Ranolf might well have crumbled with despair or raged against the cruelty of fate. Instead he rose abruptly, blazing with resolve, and announced there was no time to be lost. After kissing his wife’s cheek and reassuring her all would be well, he marched from the room, shouting commands to his footmen and summoning his advisers to the Council Chamber.

Within an hour of my visit to Millicent, the castle was in tumult. The king ordered the wounded taken from the castle grounds to the convent of St. Lucia, escorted by the servants who had tended to them. Though sunset approached, carts and wagons were sent to St. Elsip to gather stores of ale, flour, and other provisions. Pages traveled to neighboring farms with bags of gold to buy livestock. None of the king’s subjects knew the nature of the danger facing them, yet all did his bidding without hesitation.

It was not until that night, in the flickering candlelight of the Great Hall, that the king announced what some had already guessed. By then servants had returned from St. Elsip with tales of men in town whose wounds would not heal, who appeared frailer now than when they’d returned from battle. A sense of foreboding drifted through the castle like a damp mist, slowing our pace as we’d made our way to the king’s assembly.

King Ranolf did not shy from speaking plainly. Our soldiers had been stricken with the pox, he said, to scattered gasps. St. Elsip—indeed the whole kingdom—might be swept by this pestilence, but he would not bow down before it. The sick men had been banished from the castle, and the next morning he would close the gates to protect us from any further threat of disease. Those who wished to join their families elsewhere were free to leave. For the weeks and months to come, the rest of us would remain sealed inside the walls, alone.