The Oracle Queen Read online

  That was all it took. The people latched on to it and filled in the rest. “The queen is often jealous,” someone said. “How foolish of the boy,” said someone else. “But who could blame him? Look how lovely this girl was. Lovely as our queen is not. That’s why she’s so jealous in the first place. Poor queen. Poor girl.”

  “Poor queen? This is murder! Murder over a lover’s tryst!”

  Francesca smiled. When she returned to Sonia she nearly laughed as the two of them walked out of the square unnoticed.

  “How did you know to do that?” Sonia asked.

  “You know what they say. An Arron is ready for anything. Now let us go. Our plans have changed.”

  THE VOLROY

  Elsabet ordered Bess’s body brought to the Volroy. She ordered healers and priestesses to look upon it, to provide her with what answers they could. But there was only so much that could be told about an arrow to the back of the head.

  “Get away from her, then,” Elsabet said, and draped herself over her friend. Her cheeks were red and wet with tears. She kissed Bess’s cold hands. “What good am I?” she asked, wiping her eyes. “What good is an oracle queen who cannot see enough to protect those she loves?”

  Rosamund, Jonathan, and Gilbert stood by helplessly. They too were full of sorrow. Even Rosamund had wept when she heard the news. Wept and raged when she saw the arrow struck through Bess’s pretty head. Now they were alone in the throne room, the healers dismissed, the priestesses’ prayers said. No other members of the Black Council were brave enough to show their faces with Bess’s body stretched out across the council table.

  “How could this happen?” Elsabet stalked back and forth, long legs shaking.

  “Elsie,” Gilbert ventured softly. “Let me get you something.”

  “What, Gilbert? What do I need?”

  “I don’t know. I could summon your king-consort. He will want to know of this.”

  In the corner of her eye, Elsabet saw Rosamund bare her teeth.

  “William?” Elsabet laughed. “He is hiding somewhere like the rat he is. He knows he does not need to put on an act anymore.” She turned back to Bess and wiped her eyes again. “Where is Catherine Howe?” she demanded, voice booming.

  “We don’t know, Elsie. She is not yet at the Volroy this morning.”

  “Where is Sonia Beaulin?”

  “She is here,” Rosamund answered. “I don’t know where just now, but I have seen her.”

  “Where is Francesca Arron?”

  “We have not seen her yet this morning either.”

  Elsabet looked at Rosamund. “Things will move quickly now.”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  “What will move quickly now?” Gilbert asked. He had not heard the news that Rosamund had delivered to her that morning that thanks to Catherine Howe’s spies, they knew her king-consort was betraying her with Francesca Arron. Nor had he heard the message of poisoned tonic that Jonathan had whispered into her ear.

  “Then give me a moment alone with Jonathan.”

  Rosamund nodded and tugged a sputtering Gilbert from the room.

  “My queen,” said Jonathan, his shoulders square. “Queen Elsabet. What can I do to help you?”

  “You can run.”

  “What?”

  Elsabet wiped another tear from her cheek, the last she would allow herself to cry today. “The capital will not be safe for you for a time. Not even here in the Volroy. You must find a way to get out of the city before it begins.”

  “But”—he gestured sadly toward Bess—“it’s already begun. I can’t leave you, not now.”

  “You can and you must, because I order it. I have arranged for enough coin, and you will find a fast horse awaiting you in the stables.”

  “No,” he said, and to her surprise, he came and took her by the shoulders. “I am supposed to be here. You dreamed of me. You dreamed of me so I could fight for you.”

  Elsabet smiled. She touched his face. How she wanted for that to be true.

  “No, Jonathan. I dreamed of you for solace. So you could be a moment of peace for me when everything around me crumbled. But it was not a vision. It was only a dream.”

  After Jonathan had gone, Elsabet summoned Rosamund and Gilbert to return.

  “Tell me,” she said to them, “in your short time waiting in the halls, what are they saying? What are the whispers?”

  “They are trying to say it was an accident,” Rosamund muttered. “As if an arrow to the head can be an accident.”

  “It can be,” Gilbert said softly. “It could be. Bess could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been a case of mistaken identity.”

  Elsabet looked at him sharply. “Now that I do not doubt. Covered in a heavy cloak in the early light of morning? Having just left Jonathan’s apartment? Mistaken identity, indeed. That arrow was meant for him, and it found her instead.”

  Gilbert’s lips trembled around his words, cautious, as if he feared whatever he said next could lead them down dangerous paths. “Who? Who would dare? Have you seen something?”

  “Seen something? No, I have seen nothing.” Elsabet closed her eyes, then opened them, fixed upon his face. “Though perhaps I could, if I were to have more of your tonic.”

  He twitched but did not speak. He did not confess. And that hurt her as much as anything else.

  “Did you know, Gilbert? All this time that you were poisoning me, poisoning my sight gift right out of me, did you know?”

  His lower lip wobbled, and he closed his eyes. “I had no choice.”

  “No choice?” Elsabet exploded. “No choice but to betray me? Your own foster sister? Who has loved you since we were children?”

  “I had to. Francesca poisoned my way onto the council, and she swore she would poison me, too, or reveal my secret—”

  “Francesca Arron does not give commands! I give commands! Francesca Arron does not rule! I rule! And you should have known better, Gilbert.”

  Gilbert dropped to his knees. He clasped his hands together. “Forgive me, Elsie. I never wanted to—”

  “Be silent.”

  He tried to obey, though he began to weep. “What would you have of me? What can I do?”

  “I don’t know yet what I am going to do with you,” Elsabet replied. “For now, get out of my sight. Return to your rooms and stay safe. Stay there under guard. Until this is over.”

  “This?” he asked.

  “Go!” she roared, and he scurried from the room, so afraid of her that she would have laughed, had she not been so angry and heartbroken.

  Finally, it was only she and Rosamund.

  “What now, my queen?”

  Elsabet looked at her friend, her warrior, her hair so blazing red and her reputation so fierce that rumors persisted of her dyeing it that way with madder root just to make it look like blood.

  “You know what now,” she said. “Now you take your queensguard and arrest Francesca Arron. Arrest her and throw her in the cells on charge of murder.” Rosamund nodded grimly, and Elsabet bared her teeth. “Now we end it.”

  THE VOLROY

  “That is not going to happen.”

  Sonia Beaulin stepped into the throne room with a number of queensguard soldiers. They spilled in through the open doors and spread until they lined the walls and blocked every possible exit. And over Sonia’s shoulder, Elsabet saw more. More and more, armed and ready to fight, clogging the castle with their black-and-silver armor.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Elsabet demanded. But no one answered.

  Rosamund strode forward. Her mere movement was enough to make the closest soldiers shrink back, though she had not even drawn her sword. “What do you think you’re doing, Sonia?”

  “What I must. What you could not. We are arresting a dangerous and murderous queen.”

  Elsabet’s mouth dropped open. “Murderous? Who did I murder?” Her voice grew angrier and louder as she spoke. “Bess? Do you mean to pin the assassinati
on of my own dear friend on me?”

  “Do not listen,” Sonia ordered the soldiers. “The queen is unwell. Take her into custody now and into the West Tower. There she may be kept safe.”

  “Safe? Safe from whom?” Elsabet began to tremble as the soldiers swept past Rosamund. She was as still as stone until they first took her by the wrist, and then she erupted, screaming and cursing them, throwing herself back and forth.

  “Safe from yourself, my queen,” said Sonia as they dragged Elsabet past.

  “You cannot do this to me! I am your queen! I am the Goddess’s chosen! Rosamund!” She craned her neck, able to see her commander standing a head above the others, the expression on her face still and full of anger, disbelief, and shame as she watched her own soldiers take her queen away. “Rosamund?”

  They moved her quickly, through the castle and up the many staircases to the newly furnished queen’s apartments in the West Tower.

  “Why do we not go to my chamber?” Elsabet asked. “I have not yet moved to these rooms!” She searched their faces. None spoke. All were afraid. But they did as they were told. They followed their orders. Only they were not meant to take orders from Sonia Beaulin or the Black Council. Not without Elsabet’s approval.

  When she saw the open door, she knew it for what it was: a finely decorated prison. She dug her heels hard into the stones and struck out at the nearest queensguard, her vision blacking in and out with panic as they pushed her toward it.

  “No! No, let me go!”

  But they would not. They shoved her through the door so hard she stumbled and nearly fell to her knees, and by the time she turned back, the heavy wood was already swinging shut.

  Rosamund stood silently in the middle of the throne room. Her eyes focused on no one in particular until she could no longer hear Elsabet’s cries. Then she turned to Sonia.

  The look on the other warrior’s face nearly drove her to strike. So smug. So pleased with herself. She was proud of putting Rosamund in her place. Proud of being a traitor.

  “How does it feel?” Sonia asked. “To know that your queensguard was never really yours? That they have been mine, all this time?”

  “Not all of them.”

  Sonia sighed. “No. Not all. But those have been dealt with.”

  “What do you mean to do here, Sonia? What do you and Francesca have planned?” Her voice remained calm, almost weary. Almost bored. And with every word, a little of Sonia’s joy was chipped away. “Or do you even know? Perhaps she does not tell you. The master often doesn’t inform the puppet about the play.” She raised her eyes to the gathered soldiers. Many were good. Many she had trusted. They were only afraid, and following orders, and being lied to. “I don’t know what she has told you. Maybe she told you they would release the queen as soon as those who led her astray were dead. But you must know that is a lie. They can never let Elsabet out again, not without losing their heads.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Sonia snapped.

  “I won’t have you lying to them. If they do this, they should know what it is they are doing. They are deposing a Queen Crowned.” She waited. A small ripple of doubt passed through them, but it amounted to only a shuffling of feet and some hard, nervous swallows. Not that she had really expected more. She had truly just wanted them to know.

  “Give up your sword, Rosamund, and come quietly. I’ll put you in the very best of the cells, you have my word.”

  Rosamund stepped forward.

  “You can’t win.” Sonia’s eyes glittered. She drew her sword. “There is no point in trying. No point in fighting. The cause is lost. Already the soldiers have eliminated the Howes. They say Catherine and the rest of them burned up in a fire of their own making. And as for your house . . .”

  Rosamund thought of Antere House. Her brothers, laughing in the kitchen, the wives planning some grand hunt. Her mother, old now and unwell, but still ruler of them all. And the girls. The sweet, wild girls who slept with their wooden swords in their arms like dolls and covered her face with kisses when she returned from the Volroy after a long day.

  “You should not have told me about my house, Sonia.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because now there is no one for me to protect by surrendering.”

  Rosamund drew her sword with a bellow and brought it arcing down directly at Sonia’s head, so fast that the other warrior could not fully block it, and the blade glanced down along her arm, finding its way through her armor and drawing blood. Those who saw Rosamund fight always said it was a wonder she could move so fast, with her bulk and size. They said watching her was like watching a dance of red and silver.

  Rosamund’s sword clashed again with Sonia’s, and she pressed up close as the other warrior glanced at the wide-eyed soldiers. “None of them will intervene. None have the stomach to face me outside of training. How many do you think are secretly hoping that I will win?”

  Sonia growled and shoved her away. They met and clashed and fell back again, and it was clear whose war gift was the stronger. Sonia panted, soft from so long sitting on the Black Council. Rosamund’s sword was light as a dagger in her hand.

  “Stand down!” Sonia shouted, and threw three fast knives, guiding them with her gift. But Rosamund knocked them all away. Then she picked them up and sent them back, her own gift too strong to be deflected, so that Sonia had to dodge and duck.

  “Sonia Beaulin, in your fine black cape and fancy, shining boots. Dressed up in a warrior’s clothes with no war gift to speak of.”

  Teeth bared, Sonia charged, slashing and striking with all her might. Together they stumbled into a table. They knocked up against the watching, astonished soldiers. She sliced into Rosamund’s shoulder, and Rosamund fell across the long table and rolled, but came up on one knee and laughed when she saw Sonia panting.

  “Weak,” Rosamund said. “Pampered, Black Council pet.”

  Sonia leaped, and Rosamund blocked and kicked. Sonia spit blood onto the wood floor.

  “You’re too small for this, Beaulin. Why don’t you send the rest of my army in here to finish what you can barely start?”

  Sonia wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “You are truly mad,” she said. “Your whole family is dead. They tell me your mother was stabbed in her bed.”

  “My mother would never die in bed.” Rosamund bellowed and charged her again, metal on metal like a song in her ears and Sonia’s frustration turning to fear like a song in her heart. Sonia pushed back with her gift; Rosamund felt it, like a hammer against her chest. But Rosamund’s gift pushed back harder.

  “Guards!” Sonia shouted, and they stepped forward like cautious dogs to surround Rosamund and Sonia in the center of the room.

  “They won’t follow you,” Rosamund said, her smile full of red teeth, “unless you do it yourself.”

  “They already follow me,” Sonia growled.

  Rosamund fought as bravely as she could, for as long as she could. She cut down three, then four of her trusted soldiers. She ran them through. She knocked them back and sent them flying. But every one she dispatched was replaced by two, and the swords began to land. Blood ran down her arms, her legs; it spread across the floor. When Rosamund had gone down to one knee, Sonia finally came to finish her, and by then, there were too many knives in Rosamund’s back to know which one it was.

  Coward, Rosamund thought as the blood filled her lungs, as she dragged herself through the fury until she saw the toes of Sonia’s fine, black boots. She had hardly any strength left, but she found enough to raise her dagger and stab Sonia through the foot. Sonia Beaulin screamed like a child and dropped to the ground.

  And Rosamund Antere died with a smile on her face.

  PRYNN

  By the time he reached Prynn, Jonathan’s horse was nearly spent, even though it was a fine mount gifted to him from the queen’s stables. He supposed he had not been mindful and had ridden her too hard. He bent and patted her frothy neck. Rest and time in a good stable, with plenty of grain and cool wate
r, and she would soon be back to herself. Fit enough to carry him . . . wherever he decided to disappear to.

  Jonathan sighed. He did not know exactly what he had hoped his return to Prynn would be, but it was not this, creeping in under cover of dark, running, when everything inside him said to turn back and fight, turn back and protect Elsabet from whatever came. But what could he do? She was his queen, and he would obey.

  The horse’s tired steps clipped and clopped along the road. When he turned the corner of the street that led to his family’s house, not one of the finest in Prynn but nor was it on beggars’ row, his mood lightened, thinking of his mother, and his father, his sister, and her two little ones.

  Beneath him, his horse snorted and pulled up short. She smelled the wrongness and blood before he was close enough to see the broken-in door. Jonathan leaped from the saddle and ran inside, even though the silence warned him against hope.

  He found his mother first, in the dining room, propped up in a chair. The blood that soaked the front of her dress was still warm. His father lay nearby on the floor.

  Jonathan walked through the house in a daze. The night air was cold on his skin and blew through in a constant current. Their home had been cracked open and ruined. When he found his sister lying across the stairs, he drew her into his lap and wept, and when the creak sounded behind him, he could not remember if it was only a noise from the house at night or if it meant someone else was still inside.

  THE VOLROY

  They left Elsabet alone in her prison in the West Tower for one long day and a night. Long enough for her to pace herself exhausted and to scream herself hoarse. They brought food, and she dashed it against the walls. They sent maids to clean it, and she chased them back through the door. And all the while from her window, there appeared to be nothing amiss. No great assault by loyal queensguard on the Volroy. No uprising of her people gathered at the gates. Ships docked in the harbor and sailed away reloaded. Carriages passed in the streets. No one heard her shouting. No one missed her.