In the King's Service (32 page)

“
Fah!
What
is
that? I thought it was made of almonds!”

“It
is,
” Brion said. “Ground-up almonds.”

“Then, what’s this on top?”

“Rose petals with honey,” Marie said. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it. Why don’t you give the rest of your piece to Isan, rather than waste it?
He
likes it.”

“Here, take it!” Krispin said, depositing the remains of his piece in Isan’s somewhat grubby hand.

Hurriedly Isan finished chewing his first piece, swallowed it, and popped the second piece into his mouth before anyone could change their minds.

“And that’s all there’ll be, for you lot!” Marie said firmly, replacing the lid on the box and setting it aside as she finished her own piece. “I’ll save the last two pieces for people who will appreciate them. This has come all the way from Corwyn.”

“From Sir Sé?” Isan asked, a gleam in his eyes.

“Actually, this is from my brother,” she informed him. “A messenger just arrived from Corwyn.”

Prince Brion grinned ear-to-ear. “But it
could
have come from Sir Sé. He really likes you, doesn’t he? Do you think my father will let him marry you?”

Chuckling, Marie gave him a nonchalant shrug. “I don’t know, your Highness. I hope so.”

“I’ll ask him,” Brion said, drawing himself up importantly. “I think it would be a good thing. And you like
him,
don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” she admitted.

Krispin nodded toward the letter now weighted down by the box of marchpane. “Is that from him?”

“Yes, it is,” Marie replied. “And I hadn’t finished reading it yet, so perhaps you boys could be about your business. What happened to your boats?”

Brion ducked his head guiltily and gave her a tentative smile from under the ebon shock of his hair. “We left them by the fishpond. Lord Arilan said we were scaring the cook’s fish.”

“Well, if you were sailing them there, I suspect you
were
scaring the fish,” Marie replied. “And if Cook finds them, you know what he’ll do.”

“He’ll stomp ’em flat!” Isan declared, big-eyed with horror.

“We’d better go get them!” Brion said. “C’mon!”

As the three bolted in the direction of the kitchen yards and the fishpond, Marie noted that Brigetta was still standing awkwardly by.

“You’d better go dear. The queen is always famished when she’s come from meeting with the council of state,” she said to the girl.

Smiling, Marie watched Brigetta as she went on her way. As an afterthought, she took up the ribbon from the wrappings of the marchpane and tied it around her neck, humming happily to herself. Then she took up Sé’s letter, helped herself to another piece of marchpane, and settled down to read.

It was not until nearly half an hour had passed that she began to feel a little queasy. At first, she found herself regretting that second piece of marchpane; then she attributed a faint abdominal cramping to the imminent onset of her monthly courses.

She laid Sé’s letter aside and rubbed distractedly at her stomach, thinking that it was a little early for cramping. After another minute or so, a much stronger cramp bent her double, and a sudden bout of nausea caused her to vomit unexpectedly—several times.

She felt no better when she had done so. As she tried to stand, her legs gave way beneath her and she sank back onto the arbor seat, overcome by a bout of dizziness as more cramps doubled her over and a burning sensation began to radiate outward from her stomach.

Instinctively she knew that this was no monthly cramping. Could it, indeed, have been Ahern’s marchpane?

Or—had the marchpane, indeed, come from Ahern? Brigetta had
said
it did, but—

Dear Lord, Brigetta had eaten one of the sweetmeats, too—and young Isan! Had Krispin eaten one? No, he had tried it and spat his out—and Isan had eaten the remainder of that piece!

She fumbled the lid off the wooden box and stared stupidly at the remaining dainty. As she did so, the sickly sweet scent of almond and honey and roses made her heave again, gasping as she collapsed to her knees, clutching at her middle. And she also seemed to be having trouble catching her breath. She could feel a heaviness in her chest, as if a giant hand were closing around her lungs to suffocate her; yet when she clamped shaking fingers to the pulse-point at her throat, her heart rate was so slow and so weak that she could barely find it.

She thought to look around her then, searching for someone to help her, but there was no one in sight.

 
 
IN the queen’s chamber, the council meeting being concluded, the queen’s ladies were helping their mistress to partially disrobe for an afternoon nap. Alyce was attending her, and also Jessamy, Brigetta, and Zoë. Muriella was tuning a psaltery near an open window.

“Well, ladies, it appears that the king will be able to return shortly,” Richeldis said, pulling the pins from her dark hair and shaking it loose before lying back on the day-bed. “Alyce, he sends glowing reports of your brother, who has acquitted himself quite admirably, both in the council chamber and in the field.”

Alyce smiled contentedly and settled at the foot of the queen’s day-bed to remove her shoes.

“I would be surprised if it were otherwise, Madam,” she said. “Zoë and I watched him ride against Duke Richard last autumn, when he was only partially recovered from his injury. He must be far better now. But he has had exceptional teachers, including the king himself.”

“True enough,” the queen agreed. “Ah, Jessamy, that feels so wonderful!”

Jessamy had begun massaging the queen’s temples, and smiled distractedly, though she said nothing, for she had noticed that Brigetta was looking decidedly unwell.

“Brigetta, are you ill, child? You’re suddenly looking very pale.”

Brigetta had been pouring a cup of chilled wine for the queen, but set it shakily aside and turned away, clutching at mouth and abdomen as she darted toward the garderobe.

“I do beg your pardon,” she managed to murmur, just before she was taken with a violent fit of vomiting.

Jessamy went after her immediately, as did Alyce. The queen sat up in some concern. Muriella had stopped her idle plucking at the strings of her psaltery, and stared after the stricken Brigetta in horror.

Together, Alyce and Jessamy tried to comfort Brigetta as she continued to heave, Alyce holding the girl’s hair out of the way and Jessamy venturing a probe.

“Child, child, what is it? Was it something you ate?”

“The marchpane! It must be—!” Brigetta managed to gasp out, between gagging fits. “Lord Ahern sent it. S-some of the boys ate it, too—and Marie. Dear God, I can’t breathe!”

“Which boys? How much? Where are they?” Jessamy demanded, as Alyce recoiled from the pain washing through the stricken girl.

“She’s poisoned!” Alyce blurted. “
They’re all poisoned!
But Ahern can’t have sent poisoned marchpane!”

“Krispin!” Jessamy cried, for she saw Brigetta’s memory of all of them partaking. “And Isan—dear God! They’re in the garden!”

“Sweet
Jesu,
no!” the queen cried, trying to lurch to her feet. “Jessamy, do something! Find them!”

Alyce was already dashing toward the door, heart pounding, reaching out with her mind to Marie, calling, a part of her sickly aware that it was already too late. And even as she ran, Jessamy close behind her, she realized who had given the marchpane to Brigetta to deliver:
Muriella!
And suddenly, it all became horrifyingly clear.

She faltered, outrage drawing her back, but her sister’s need—and that of the children, the innocent children!—was far greater than her desire for immediate justice.

“It was Muriella!” she said breathlessly over her shoulder to Jessamy as they ran toward the gardens.

“I know,” Jessamy gasped, and seized the arm of a guard as they came abreast of him, pausing only long enough to bark out a single command.

“Go to the queen’s solar,” she ordered, “and arrest Lady Muriella!”

They had seen the location in the garden where Marie had been reading her letter. At the path to the arbor, Alyce split off in that direction, leaving Jessamy to continue on toward the castle’s fishpond.

As Alyce approached, she saw the rumpled blur of her sister’s peacock-colored gown, stark against the creamy stone of the bench beneath the arbor, and the tumble of her loose hair veiling her face. With a little cry, she ran to Marie’s side and swept the hair aside, but the blue eyes were open and empty, the fair face already waxy pale. Sobbing, Alyce gathered her sister to her breast and held her, weeping for her loss—for Marie’s loss—for all the tomorrows that now would never be.

But urgency soon drew her from her own grief, to see what help she might render to Jessamy, for she knew, from the brief images she had read from Brigetta, that the tragedy did not stop here. With a little sob, she gently shifted her sister onto clean grass and scrambled to her feet, dashing off the way Jessamy had gone—and found her beside the fishpond in the kitchen yard, weeping as she cradled the lifeless Isan in her arms. Young Prince Brion was hugging a very frightened and wide-eyed Krispin, who at least did not appear to be too affected other than being very shocked. Jessamy’s cries had brought several kitchen servants into the doorway to investigate the source of the distress.

“Alyce—oh, thank God!” Jessamy sobbed, looking up. “Take Krispin inside at once and make him vomit! Give him the whites of half a dozen eggs, and then a great deal of water with plenty of salt in it.”

“But I didn’t eat any! I spat it out!” Krispin insisted, as Brion began dragging him toward the kitchen and Alyce hesitated uncertainly.

“Is Isan—?”

“Yes, he’s dead!” Jessamy cried. “And God knows what I shall tell his mother. He had nearly twice as much as the others. Dear
God,
how did we not see this coming?”

Suddenly very weary, Alyce started to sink down numbly beside Jessamy, but the older woman seized her roughly by the shoulder and gave her a shake.

“Don’t you dare!” she whispered vehemently. “Go and tend to Krispin. There’s nothing to be done here. Save your passion for the living!”

Half-dazed with shock, Alyce straightened and followed after Brion and Krispin, pushing past the servants in the doorway. In the bustling kitchen beyond, preparations were underway for the evening meal.

Forcing herself to focus, Alyce herded the two boys ahead of her until she spotted a basket of eggs. She seized a large cup as she changed course in that direction, nodding toward the nearest pair of kitchen maids.

“You,” she said to the younger one, “fetch us some fresh water—at once! And you,” she said to the second, “separate the whites from half a dozen of those eggs and put them in this cup. Brion, bring Krispin over here!”

“But I didn’t eat any of the marchpane!” Krispin protested.

“We must make sure,” Alyce replied. “Hurry!” she added aside to the white-faced servant, who was breaking eggs and tipping the yolks back and forth between the two halves of each, letting the whites drain into the cup Alyce held. “My sister is dead. By now, so is Lady Brigetta. And Isan.”

The boys’ faces drained of color, and anger flashed in young Brion’s gray eyes.

“Who did this terrible thing?” the crown prince demanded.

“I don’t know,” Alyce replied. “I think it was Lady Muriella.”

“But, why?” Krispin wanted to know, tears spilling down his cheeks.

“I don’t know.” Alyce took the cup, now half-filled with egg-whites, and put it into his hands. “Now, drink this—all of it!”

“No. It’s slimy. It’ll make me puke.”

“That’s the whole point. Drink it!”

At the same time, Prince Brion gave his shoulder a shake and repeated, “Drink it, Krispin.”

The younger boy braced himself and drank, forcing himself to gag down the contents of the cup in three large swallows. When he had finished, Alyce refilled the cup from an ewer the younger servant had brought, added a generous measure of salt and stirred it with a finger, and ordered the boy to drain that, too—and then a second cup. As he labored to finish the second draught, making a face, she pulled an empty basin closer, nodding for Brion to hold it under Krispin’s chin.

“Revolting, wasn’t it?” Alyce murmured, cupping the back of Krispin’s head with her hand. “Believe me, I do understand. Now open your mouth.”

Too startled to resist, Krispin obeyed, only to have Alyce poke two fingers down his throat, at the same time pressing his head over the empty basin.

The result was immediate and spectacular. When Krispin had finished retching, Brion dutifully holding the basin and looking scared, one of the kitchen maids brought him a clean towel, another offering one to Alyce.

“Will he be all right, my lady?” the girl asked.

“I think so,” Alyce replied numbly. “It doesn’t appear that he actually got a dose of the poison, but I couldn’t risk not doing everything I know to do. It was in some marchpane, but he said he spat out what he tried.”

One of the women was inspecting the contents of the basin while Brion helped Krispin wipe his mouth and Alyce washed her hands in another basin a young kitchen maid had brought.

“Marchpane, y’say?” the woman said, shaking her head. “Well, I don’t see no trace of that, my lady. I doubt he’d had anything since this morning.”

“For which, God be praised!” Alyce murmured, drying her hands.

Welcome relief flooded through her like a physical wave, and she leaned heavily on the vast kitchen table. But this momentary respite quickly gave way to recollection of less favorable outcomes: images of her sister lying dead in the garden, and the innocent Brigetta stricken in the queen’s chamber—and Isan, who had eaten more of the tainted marchpane than any of the others, likewise dead. A sob welled up in her throat, but she mastered it and laid her arms around the shoulders of Krispin and the prince.