Three Dark Crowns (22 page)

E
llis carves Arsinoe a mask to cover her healing cuts. It is so thin and closely fitted that it can rest on her face by virtue of her nose alone, but he chisels holes in the sides and then strings fine black ribbon to be tied behind her head. The mask is lacquered black, and stretches over her good cheek and the bridge of her nose to taper to her chin on the right side. He paints bright red slashes across it, down the cheek and from the eye, at her request.

“It will make quite the impression on the suitors,” he says. “When they step off of their ships. They'll wonder who you are. And what is behind the mask.”

“They'll be horrified to find out,” she says, and touches Ellis on the arm when he frowns. “The mask is wonderful. Thank you.”

“Let me help you put it on,” says Jules.

“No,” says Arsinoe. “Better to save it. For the Disembarking, like Ellis says.”

Cait nods sternly. “A good idea. It is far too pretty a thing to be worn around for no reason.”

She claps her hands together, and flour flies. She has been rolling out a piecrust for the last of the fall's jarred apples. Jules has already cut long strips for the lattice. Madrigal was to help as well, but that morning she was nowhere to be found.

Outside, something rustles against the corner of the house, near the chicken coops. Jules looks out the window.

“It's Billy,” she says. “He's caught in the barberry bush. He must have come up through the orchard.”

“I'll go,” Arsinoe says, and pushes away from the table. It is a relief to be out of bed and on her feet again. Perhaps she will take him up the hill path. Or perhaps not. The hill path winds too close to the bent-over tree, where none of the Milones want her to go. But oh, how she itches to.

Outside, Billy is kicking at thorns. “What the hell is this devil plant?”

“Barberry,” Arsinoe says. “Cait plants them around the coops to discourage the foxes. What are you doing here?”

He stops struggling. “That's not a very warm welcome. I've come to see you. Unless you are in a black mood.”

“‘Black mood'?”

“A grim mood,” he says. “Depressed. Dark. Mean.” He chuckles. “God, you are so strange sometimes, you people.”

He holds out his hand, and she pulls him out of the bush.

“I thought you might want to get away from here,” he says. “Away from your sickbed.”

“Now, that is a good idea,” she says.

He takes her down to the cove, to one of the Sandrins' slips. In it is a pretty daysailer with light blue sails and a painted yellow hull. Arsinoe is not really supposed to sail. Not since she tried to escape. But it has not been expressly forbidden.

It is a good day to be on the water; the cove is as calm as she has ever seen it, and a few of the namesake seals' heads bob out near the point of the rocks.

“Come on,” he says. “I asked Mrs. Sandrin if she would prepare us a lunch.” He holds up a basket covered with a cloth. “Fried chicken and fingerling potatoes. Soured cream. She said it was one of your favorite meals.”

Arsinoe considers the basket, as well as the poorly hidden glances from Mr. Bukovy as he haggles prices with two market merchants. What are they whispering about her these days? The scarred queen. Attacked by her sister in the woods and nearly done in by a bear. Even those who are loyal will have their doubts now. Even Luke.

“Fried chicken?” she asks, and steps into the boat.

Billy casts off. It is not long before they are past the seals, sailing north along the west side of the island.

“If we go farther, we might see frothbacks,” Arsinoe says. “Whales. We should have brought Jules. She could make them pull the boat, and we could tie down the sails.”

Billy laughs. “You sound almost bitter, you know,” he says.

Not almost. She does. So many times she has wished for just a fraction of Jules's gift. She reaches up and touches the bandaged gashes on her cheek. They will not even be healed to
scars at Beltane. They will be red and scabbed and ugly.

“When do you leave for the Disembarking?” Arsinoe asks.

“Soon,” Billy says. “Longmorrow Bay is not far. My father says we won't stop at night, and if the wind holds, we will even be early. Besides, we only have to make it as far as Sand Harbor. Then it's a slow processional into the bay. I remember that much from Joseph.”

“I suppose he has told you everything,” Arsinoe says.

“I should have paid better attention,” Billy says. “But none of it was real to me until I passed through the mist and watched Fennbirn grow larger.”

Arsinoe looks back at the island. It looks different from the sea. Safer. As if it does not breathe and demand blood.

“I'm disappointed that the suitors miss the Hunt,” he says. “That's the only part of the festival that sounds like real fun.”

“Don't be too sad. When you are king-consort, you will lead the Hunt every year. And even if you don't become king-consort, the suitors participate in the Hunt of the Stags next year, before the wedding.”

“Have you ever been to where we're going? To Innisfuil?”

“No,” says Arsinoe. “Though it's very near to the Black Cottage, where I was born.”

“And where Jules's aunt Caragh is now,” Billy recalls. “That will be hard. For her to be so close. Will Jules and Madrigal try to see her, do you think?”

“Jules may have a temper, but she will not break the council's decree. No matter how unfair. And as for Madrigal, she
and Caragh never really cared for each other.”

“Do no sisters care for each other on this island?” he asks, and Arsinoe snorts.

“Speaking of sisters, shouldn't you be courting mine? Why are you not in Rolanth, with Mirabella?”

“I didn't want to go, after you were hurt. I will see her at the festival, like everyone else.”

His words give Arsinoe a warm feeling in her belly. He is good, this mainlander. And though he was not lying when he said she would make for a poor wife, he will make a very good king-consort to one of her sisters. She does not dare to think he would make a good king-consort for her. Such hopes are dangerous.

Billy eases the sails as he turns the daysailer away from the island, bearing off into open water.

“We shouldn't go out too far,” Arsinoe says. “Or it will be dark by the time we return.”

“We aren't going back to Wolf Spring.”

“What?” she asks. “Then where are we going?”

“I'm doing what any civilized person ought to do. I'm taking you off this island. Straight through the Sound, and home. You can disappear if you want. Or you can stay with me. I'll give you anything you need. But you cannot stay here.”

“Stay with you?”

“Not with me, exactly. I will have to come back for the festival. If I don't, my father will have my scalp. But if I am not made king, I will return and find you. And my mother and
sisters will all help in the meantime.”

Arsinoe sits quietly. She did not expect this. He is trying to save her, to take her away from the danger by force. It is such a mainlander thing to do. And a brave thing to do for a friend.

“I can't let you. You'll be punished if I go,” she says.

“I'll make it seem that you pushed me overboard and left me to swim,” he says. “You have tried it before; no one will doubt me.”

“Junior,” she says. She looks out at the sea, half expecting to see the mist net rising. “It will not let me go. Didn't Joseph tell you?”

“It will be different this time,” he says. “This boat isn't from Fennbirn. It's mine, and it comes and goes as it pleases.” He touches the mast as if stroking the neck of a horse. “I sent for it. The last time my father went home, I had him tow it back for me. A gift for Joseph, I said. For he and I to sail.”

Hope rises in Arsinoe's throat. He makes it sound possible.

“Billy. You have been a good friend to me. As good as I have ever had. But I can't go. Besides, you ought to have faith. Even with this ruined face, I may still win.”

“No you won't,” he snaps. “Arsinoe. They're going to kill you. And not before next year's festival. Not someday—some months away. Now. My father told me what they're planning. That is why he sent his letter. The priestesses of this bloody, godforsaken island. They're going to tear you and Katharine apart. They're going to throw you into the fires in pieces and crown Mirabella before the dawn of the next day.”

“That is not true,” she says, and then listens as he tells her what he has learned about the plot and the Sacrificial Year.

“Arsinoe, do you believe me? I wouldn't lie. I could never come up with it.”

Arsinoe sits quietly. To her right lies the island—permanent and unbothered by the waves. Anchored down deep. If only there were a way to snap off the lot of it and set it to drift. If only it were just an island rather than a pretty, sleeping dog with sand on its paws and cliffs on its shoulders, waiting to wake and rip her open.

“Your father could be wrong,” she says.

But he is not. Billy is telling the truth.

Arsinoe thinks of Luke and the Milones. She thinks of Joseph. She thinks of Jules.

“We were going to fight,” she says. “Even though it was a losing battle. But I thought I had more time. I don't want to die, Junior.”

“Don't worry, Arsinoe. I won't let you. Now, grab that rope. Help me go faster.”

Innisfuil Valley

“T
hey have not found anything. No trace of her. She was not hiding in a Wolf Spring attic, and the boats have dragged nothing up in their nets but fish. Arsinoe is gone.”

“She cannot be gone,” Mirabella says, and Bree purses her lips.

“May not be, might not be,” Bree says. “But she is.”

“That is good,” says Elizabeth. “If she has fled, no one can force you to harm her. And she will be unable to harm you.”

Harm. It is a mild word for what they must do. But she would not expect anything harsher from Elizabeth.

Mirabella stands before the tall mirror as Bree laces her into a long black dress. It is a comfortable one, loose and not too heavy. Good for lounging about in on a day when she does not have to be seen.

Elizabeth kneels on the floor, searching through their many
trunks for a soft hairbrush. As she does, she forgets her injury and knocks the stump of her wrist against the corner of one of the lids. She hugs her arm tightly and bites her lip. Pepper the woodpecker flies fast to her shoulder.

“Elizabeth,” Mirabella says. “You do not have to do that.”

“Yes, I do. I must learn ways to use it.”

Shadows pass by outside. Priestesses, always close at hand. Always watching. In Mirabella's lavish black-and-white tent, laid out with thick rugs and a bed, soft pillows and tables and chairs, it is easy to forget that it is not a room with dense walls but canvas and silk, where they are easily overheard.

Bree finishes lacing the dress and stands beside Mirabella in front of the mirror.

“Have you seen some of the boys here?” she asks loudly. “Putting up tents in the sun with their shirts off their backs? Do you think that naturalist boys are really as wild as they say?”

Mirabella holds her breath. Naturalist boys. Like Joseph. She has not told Bree and Elizabeth about what happened between them. Though she longs to, she is afraid to say it out loud. Joseph will be at the festival. She could see him again. But he will be with Juillenne Milone. And no matter what happened between Mirabella and Joseph on the beach, and in the forest, no matter that they were so tangled in each other that they could not hear the storm, Mirabella knows that she is the interloper in their story.

“Probably not,” Mirabella says equally loudly. “But I am sure that you will find out and tell me.”

The shadows move along, and Bree squeezes Mirabella's shoulder. It will be a long day inside, after two long days of travel. The jolting carriage from Rolanth made all their stomachs uneasy, particularly the stretch around the mouth of Sand Harbor, which smelled of salt and fish tossed onto a warming beach.

Mirabella peeks out through the tent flap. There are so many people, laughing and working in the sun. She has not seen much of the valley. They kept her hidden in the carriage until her tent was ready and immediately brought her inside. What view she did have was of predawn cliffs and thick, dark trees surrounding the broad clearing.

The priestesses say she ought to feel more like herself here. More like a queen, when she is at the island's heart and so near to the Goddess's pulse in the deep, dark chasm of the Breccia Domain. But she does not. Mirabella feels the island hum beneath her feet, and she does not like it at all.

“Where is Luca?” she asks. “I have hardly seen her.”

“She is busy with the search,” Elizabeth says. “I have never seen her so agitated or so angry. She can't believe your sister could be so defiant.”

But that is Arsinoe. She was always that way, and it seems that growing up in Wolf Spring has only made it worse. Mirabella could see it in her eyes, that day in the forest. She could see it in Joseph's eyes as well. Wolf Spring raises its children defiant.

“Luca is also busy overseeing whatever they are moving in
those crates,” Bree says. “Crates and crates and crates. And no one can say what is in them. Do you know, Elizabeth?”

The priestess shakes her head. That is not surprising. The temple does not trust her anymore, and with only one hand, she would not be of much use loading and unloading.

“Do you think,” Elizabeth asks, “that they will still find her? Could she really have gotten away and survived?”

“No one thinks so,” Bree says gently. “But it is better that she should die this way than any other.”