Three Dark Crowns (25 page)

T
he poisoner kill is mostly birds, and a few rabbits. It will be nothing compared to the naturalist kill, but that is to be expected. The Hunt is truly the naturalists' portion of Beltane.

Katharine joins Natalia in the long, white kitchen tent and finds Natalia wrist deep in feathers, plucking a pheasant.

“Should I,” Katharine starts, “have brought the servants?”

“No,” Natalia says. “The few we have brought are tasked with other things. But there are still birds to be plucked. Beltane makes servants of us all.”

Katharine rolls up the sleeves of her gown and grabs for the nearest bird.

Natalia nods approvingly. “Pietyr has been a good influence on you,” she says.

“He did not teach me to pull feathers,” says Katharine. “I may make a mess of it.”

“But you are self-assured. You are charming. You have grown up since he has come.”

Katharine smiles back and puffs feathers away from her nose. Most of the birds are destined for the feasts, but a few of the best will be reserved for the Quickening Ceremony and her
Gave Noir.

“Is that not why you brought him to Greavesdrake?”

“It is,” Natalia says. “It was his task to make you a fanciable woman, and he has.” There is a bit of blood on her fingers. She has been pulling too hard and has torn the skin. “It was my task to develop your gift and to keep you safe. My task to make you the queen.”

“Natalia, what is the matter?” asks Katharine. “You sound as though you think you have failed.”

“Perhaps I have,” she says, and lowers her voice to a barely audible whisper, though there is no one else in the tent, and no nearby shadows on the canvas.

“I hoped that Arsinoe's escape would change their plans,” Natalia goes on. “That they would be too busy searching for the hideous brat. Or that they would deem it unnecessary. But I have seen the crate's moving, and I know what is inside. All those serrated knives.”

Across the table, Katharine keeps working. The faraway, vacant look in Natalia's ice-blue eyes, and the dread in her voice, chills Katharine to the bone.

“Arsinoe was a clever thing,” Natalia says. “A coward but clever. Using that mainland boy to sneak her away . . . Who
would have thought it possible?”

“I do not think that they made it,” Katharine says. “I think they are both at the bottom of the sea. With fish biting away their cheeks.”

Natalia laughs. “Perhaps. But if she is at the bottom of the sea, she is still not here. And they will have only one target.”

“‘They'? Natalia, what are you talking about? Is something wrong? Do you think I will fail the
Gave Noir?”

“No. You will not. It will be a spectacular success.”

Katharine flushes shamefully. The
Gave
is the thing she dreads. Since long before the humiliation of her birthday. Failing before Natalia and Genevieve is bad enough. To fail before the island will be so much worse.

“‘Spectacular'? That is not likely,” she says.

Natalia pushes the dead birds to the side. Her eyes travel over Katharine like she is seeing her for the first time.

“Do you trust me, Kat?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then eat from the
Gave
until your belly is swollen.” Her hand darts out to grab the young queen's as fast as the strike of a snake. “Eat it without fear.
And trust that there will be no poison.
”

“What? How?”

“The priestesses may think that they are smart,” Natalia says. “But no one is better at sleight of hand than I am. And I will do anything to make you appear strong. So that no one will be able to say that this is a Sacrificial Year.”

“W
e used to share our meat,” Ellis says, “instead of dividing into separate feasts. Poisoners, naturalists. Warriors. Elementals. Even the giftless. We were all one on festival days when I was young.”

“When was that, Granddad,” Jules asks. “One or two hundred years ago?”

Ellis grins and sends Jake over the top of the table to nip her fingers.

The morning after the Hunt is quiet. Everyone in the meadow is either working or resting. Or tending their wounded. As predicted, many within the great horde were injured. But there has been no word of any deaths. Some have begun to whisper that this Beltane is blessed.

But it cannot be blessed with Arsinoe gone.

Camden climbs clumsily onto Jules's lap and sniffs at the bandaged cut on Jules's shoulder. It is not from the bear. The
great brown she left where she found him, snug in his den. Instead, she went on to her stag and brought him down fast, one cut with her knife across his throat. But a thrashing hoof caught her as she held him down.

Jules reaches over the table and slices Cam a thick piece of the stag's heart.

“That stag is the finest take of the Hunt,” Cait says. “By rights that heart should go into a stew for the queens.”

“Send the rest of it, then,” Jules says. “All the queens are not here. And Arsinoe would want Cam to have her portion.”

Behind the table, Madrigal's tent rustles. Jules frowns and squeezes her cougar. That tent has been rustling since she woke. Rustling and giggling. Madrigal is not alone.

“Get up and out of there,” Cait says, and kicks the flap. “There's work.”

The tent flap rises. Matthew holds it up so that Madrigal can duck beneath his arm.

Cait and Ellis freeze. Matthew has been with Madrigal, but that does not make any sense. He loves Aunt Caragh. Or he did. Madrigal's fingers slide down the open collar of his shirt, and he smiles. Grins, even, like a guileless hound that has been chasing thrown sticks.

Jules jumps up from the table so quickly that she unseats Camden.

“What have you done?” she shouts. Her hand slams down. Everything on the tabletop shakes. “Get away from him!”

“Jules, no!” Ellis grasps Camden around the neck just as
she is set to spring. Matthew steps in front of Madrigal to shield her, and Jules growls.

“I,” Madrigal says. “I . . .”

“I don't care if you are my mother! You shut your mouth!”

“Juillenne Milone.”

Jules quiets. She clenches her fists, and her teeth, and tears her eyes from Matthew and Madrigal to look at her grandmother.

“You get out of here now,” Cait says calmly. “Go.”

Jules takes several deep breaths. But she calms, and Ellis releases Camden. She turns on her heel.

“Jules, wait,” says Madrigal.

“Madrigal,” Cait says. “Keep quiet.”

Jules stalks away into the Beltane crowd. She is lost in it in seconds.

For a while she walks without purpose, an angry girl and a mountain cat cutting a wide path. Matthew and Madrigal seemed so at ease. Not at all like new lovers. With Madrigal's frequent disappearances, it is impossible to determine when it started.

“I hate her,” Jules says to Camden quietly. Selfish Madrigal, constantly acting without thought. She had created chaos for Jules's whole life and never did anything to fix it beyond pouting. Now she has Matthew. She always did like to take things from Caragh. Even this last thing. The only thing Caragh had left.

“Jules!”

She turns. It is Luke, shouldering his way through people.

She had not been sure he would come. Loyal Luke. He had believed in Arsinoe since the beginning. He was the only one who never doubted.

When he reaches Jules he wraps her in a warm embrace. Hank the rooster flutters down from Luke's back to peck a hello to Camden.

“I am glad you're here,” Jules says. “You are one of the only welcome sights I have had at this festival.”

He holds out a package wrapped in brown paper.

“What's this?” she asks.

“The dress I made for Arsinoe,” he says.

Jules squeezes the fabric inside the bag.

“Why did you bring it?” she asks. “When she is not here to wear it?”

“It was never for her. She asked me to make it for you. She told me to make it well and to make it shine. For you and the eyes of your young man.”

Jules holds the package to her chest. Sweet, foolish Arsinoe, to think of her instead of herself. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she had only done it because she knew even then that she intended to run away.

“Did she really leave us, Jules?” Luke asks. “Or was it the mainlander? Was she taken?”

Jules cannot imagine Arsinoe doing anything she did not want to do. But it is possible. And the thought will comfort Luke.

“I do not know,” she says. “She may have been.”

Luke sighs. Around them the faces are jovial. Untroubled festival faces. Most are probably glad that Arsinoe is gone. It is one less obstacle in Mirabella's path. Now there is only Katharine. A poisoner, rumored to be weak and sickly.

“I suppose we ought to support Mirabella now,” Luke says. “I suppose we will have to grow to love her. It will be easier to do, since she didn't have to slay our Arsinoe.”

Jules nods grimly. She will never love Mirabella, but for her own, small reasons. It does not mean she will make a poor queen.

“I saw the suitors' ships when I passed Sand Harbor,” Luke says. “Five of them, though Billy's doesn't really count.”

Jules nods grimly as Luke tells her which flags the ships bear. Two from the land of Bernadine's consort. One from Camille's. One from someplace he cannot identify. But Jules is no longer listening. Billy's father's ship is at Innisfuil. With Billy aboard it? Somehow she does not think so. She doubts that Chatworth has any more knowledge of Billy and Arsinoe's fate than anyone else.

“Strange, isn't it?” Luke ponders. “The way we take mainlanders in to our bosoms, just so we can keep them out?”

In the harbor to the southeast, the delegation ships will wait until sunset, when they begin the procession toward Longmorrow Bay. There, they will lay anchor for the Disembarking. Had Arsinoe been with her, Jules might have taken Camden across the cliffs to spy. Now it hardly matters. Let Mirabella choose
whoever she likes. He will have little power on the island. King-consorts are figureheads. Symbols of peace with the mainland.

“What is that?” Luke asks, and points.

Priestesses run down the path from the cliffs in a black-and-white line. Jules and Luke press forward to get a better view. So do many others. Small as she is, Jules has to jump to see over their heads and shoulders.

There is a disturbance near the Westwood tents. Or perhaps it is in the High Priestess's tent. They are so close together that it is hard to tell. Luke prods a tall fellow in the back.

“Oi, do you know what's going on over there?”

“Can't be sure,” the man replies. “But it sounds like they caught the traitor queen.”

“That can't be,” Luke says.

“I think it is. There are priestesses coming now.”

“Let us through!” Jules shouts. But the crowd is too dense. She growls, and Camden snarls and jumps against the man's back, slicing his shirt. The edges of the fabric soak red, and he cries out.

The crowd parts. They also scream at her—horrible naturalist slurs about her and her beast. But she does not care. Behind her, Luke has gone for Cait and Ellis. If it really is Arsinoe, as Jules both prays and fears that it is, then she will need them all.

I
t does not take long for the Black Council to assemble in the tent that Luca designated. The tent is small and mostly empty, with only a few rugs, and stacks of crates inside. It is flimsy and impermanent, but the weight of the people standing beneath it makes it seem as substantial as solid rock.

The poisoners Paola Vend and Lucian Marlowe, and war-gifted Margaret Beaulin, stand to one side with Renata Hargrove. Natalia Arron stands at the head. The head of the snake, Luca sometimes calls her. Behind her are the other Arrons of the council: Allegra, Antonin, Lucian, and Genevieve. Genevieve stands close at Natalia's shoulder. She is Natalia's ears on the council, they say. Her knife in the dark. Mirabella dislikes her on sight.

It is only by chance that Mirabella is there. She was with Luca when the priestesses came with the news of Arsinoe's
capture, and Luca did not have time to argue with her about leaving.

Across the tent, Mirabella and Jules briefly lock eyes. It is a charged moment in the midst of charged moments, and it does not last long. But afterward, Mirabella will remember the fierceness in Jules's expression and how much she looked like the cougar beside her.

“Queen Mirabella should not be here,” Natalia says in her cold, steady voice. She is the only one in the tent whose heart does not appear to be pounding. “She has no voice on the council.”

“There are many here who do not have a voice on the council,” Cait points out.

“Cait,” Natalia says. “Of course you may stay. As fosters, all you Milones may stay.”

“Aye, and we thank you,” Cait replies sarcastically. “But is it true? Has she been found?”

“We will know soon enough,” says Luca. “I have sent priestesses to the coast to collect these travelers, whoever they may be.”

The Black Council sneers at the word “travelers,” and Natalia shushes them like children. “If one of these travelers is indeed Arsinoe, then Queen Mirabella should go. You know better than anyone that they are not to meet until the Disembarking.”

“They have already met once,” Luca says. “Another time will do no harm. The queen will stay. She will stay and be
silent. As will you, young Milone.”

The cougar pins its ears. The elder Milones each place a hand on Jules's shoulders.

The priestesses return from the beach with tromping footsteps and jostling bodies. Mirabella listens tensely as the crowd mutters and gasps. And then the tent flap opens, and the priestesses throw Arsinoe inside.

Mirabella bites the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. It is hard to tell that it is Arsinoe at first. She is soaked to the bone, and shaking, crumpled into a ball on the thin temple rug. And her face is ruined by deep, stitched gashes.

The priestesses stand guard with their hands on the hilts of their knives. They are ridiculous. The girl can barely stand let alone run.

“What happened to her face?” Renata Hargrove asks, disgusted.

“So there really was a bear,” Genevieve mutters over Natalia's shoulder.

The stitched-together cuts are bright red. Irritated by the salt water.

More noise rumbles outside the tent flap, and two more priestesses enter with a boy struggling between them. Through his soaked, sand-streaked clothes, Mirabella recognizes him as the boy who was in the woods when Arsinoe and Jules found Joseph. He had been holding the horses. She had thought he was an attendant. But he must be the suitor, William Chatworth Jr.

The boy wrenches loose of the priestesses and kneels near Arsinoe, shivering.

“Arsinoe,” he says. “It's going to be all right.”

“Arsinoe, I'm here!” Jules shouts, but Cait and Ellis hold her back.

Lucian Marlowe reaches down and pulls Chatworth up by the collar. “The boy should be killed,” he says.

“Perhaps,” says Natalia. “But he is a delegate.” She steps toward him and holds his chin in her hand. “Did you knowingly take Queen Arsinoe, mainlander? Did you attempt to help her flee? Or did she take control of your vessel and do it herself?”

Her voice is carefully neutral. Anyone listening would believe that she does not care one way or another how he answers.

“We were caught in a squall,” he says. “We barely made it here. We did not mean to leave.”

Margaret Beaulin laughs aloud. Genevieve Arron shakes her head.

“He didn't know,” Arsinoe whispers from the carpet. “I made him. It was me.”

“Very good,” says Natalia. She flicks her wrist, and two priestesses take Billy by the arms.

“No,” he says. “She's lying!”

“Why should we believe the word of a mainlander over one of our own queens?” Natalia asks.

“Take him to the harbor,” she says. “Send word to his father. Tell him that we are most relieved that he has been returned
unharmed. And hurry. He does not have long to recover before the Disembarking.”

“This whole place is mad,” Billy growls. “Don't you touch her! Don't you dare touch her!”

He struggles, but it is not difficult to remove him, exhausted as he is.

With him gone, every eye falls on Arsinoe.

“This is unfortunate,” Renata says.

“And unpleasant,” says Paola. “It would have been better had she stayed lost. If she had drowned. Now there will be a mess.”

Genevieve slips out from behind Natalia and leans down close to Arsinoe's ear.

“She has been very stupid,” she says. “Another boat and another boy. She has not even come up with a different plan.”

“Get away from her.” Jules Milone's voice is a growl. Genevieve looks for a moment at the cougar, as if unsure it was not the one who actually spoke.

“Quiet,” the High Priestess says. “And you, Genevieve. Get back.”

Genevieve clenches her jaw. She looks to Natalia, but Natalia does not disagree. At Beltane, the temple rules. The Goddess rules, whether the Black Council likes it or not.

Luca kneels before Arsinoe. She takes the queen's hands between her own and rubs them.

“You feel like ice,” she says. “And you look like a belly-up fish.” She motions to one of the priestesses. “Bring her water.”

“I do not want water.”

Luca sighs. But she smiles at Arsinoe kindly, trying to be patient. “What do you want, then? Do you know where you are?”

“I tried to get away from you,” Arsinoe says. “I tried to run, but the mist wouldn't let go. We fought. We paddled. But it held us like a net.”

“Arsinoe,” Cait says. “Do not say any more.”

“It doesn't matter, Cait. Because I couldn't get away. She held us in that fog until she spit us out, right into this cursed harbor.”

Arsinoe's arms tremble, but her eyes do not waver. They are red, and weary, full of hatred and despair, but they remain fixed on the High Priestess's face.

“Does she know?” Arsinoe asks. “Does your precious queen know what you are planning?”

Luca inhales sharply. She tries to pull away, but Arsinoe does not let go. Priestesses advance to help, and grasp Arsinoe by the shoulders.

“Does she know that you are planning to kill me?”

The priestesses force Arsinoe facedown onto the rug. Jules shouts, and Ellis holds Camden tight by the neck to keep her from leaping.

“Does she know?” Arsinoe shrieks.

“Kill her,” Luca says calmly. “The escape cannot be pardoned a second time.” She motions to the priestesses, and they draw their knives. “Take her head and her arms. Cut the
heart separate from the body. And throw it all into the Breccia Domain.”

Arsinoe struggles as the priestesses move upon her. They pin her down. They raise their knives. The council looks on in shock. Not even the poisoners were ready for this. The only one not slightly green is war-gifted Margaret Beaulin.

“No!” Jules shouts again.

“Get her out of here,” Natalia says. “For the girl's own good, Cait. She does not need to see this.”

Cait and Ellis struggle with Jules and drag her out of the tent. Mirabella steps forward and takes Luca by the arm.

“You cannot do this,” she says. “Not here. Not now. She is a queen!”

“And she will have the death rites of a queen, though she dies in disgrace.”

“Luca, stop. Stop it now!”

The High Priestess pushes Mirabella back gently.

“You do not have to stay either,” she says. “Perhaps it would be better if we escorted you out.”

On the thin rug, Arsinoe is screaming as the priestesses tear at her, pressing her down, pulling her limbs to lay flat. It seems that she is crying red tears, but it is only that the stitches in her face have begun to stretch.

“Arsinoe,” Mirabella whispers. Arsinoe used to chase Katharine like a monster through the muddy bank. She was always dirty. Always angry. Always laughing.

One of the priestesses places a foot on Arsinoe's back and
yanks her arm hard to pull it out of joint. Arsinoe yelps. She does not have much fight left. It will not be difficult to saw through her arms and head.

“No!” Mirabella shouts. “You will not do this!”

She calls down the storm almost without knowing it. Wind bows the sides of the tent and tears at the flaps. The priestesses upon Arsinoe are so focused that they do not notice until the first bolt of lightning shakes the ground beneath them.

The Black Council scatters like rats. Before she can send the flames from the candles after them, or lightning comes straight for their heads. Luca and the priestesses try to reason with her, but Mirabella brings the storm down harder. Half the tent collapses beneath the force of the wind.

In the end, they all run.

Mirabella gathers Arsinoe into her lap and brushes salty, filthy hair from her sister's cheeks. The storm calms.

“It is all right now,” Mirabella says softly. “You will be all right.”

Arsinoe blinks her tired black eyes. “You're going to pay for this,” she says.

“I do not care,” says Mirabella. “Let them execute us both.”

“Hmph,” Arsinoe snorts. “I'd like to see them try.”

Mirabella kisses her sister's forehead. She is weak and feverish. The knotted wounds that line her face are swollen and slightly torn. Every bit of her must sing with pain. Yet Arsinoe does not wince.

“You are made of stone,” Mirabella says, and touches
Arsinoe's stitched-together cheek. “It is a wonder that anything was able to cut you at all.”

Arsinoe struggles out of Mirabella's arms. That too is like the sister she remembers. Always a wild thing, not made for cuddling.

“Is there water?” Arsinoe asks. “Or did you turn it into an arrow and stab Natalia Arron through the heart?”

Mirabella retrieves the pitcher from where the storm cast it onto the floor. Most of it spilled, but there is still a cupful, sloshing against the sides. “There is not much,” she says. “I was not focused. I only wanted to keep them away. It was like that day at the Black Cottage.”

“I don't remember that day,” Arsinoe says. She upends the pitcher and swallows greedily. She may throw it up as soon as she stands.

“Try, then. Try to remember.”

“I don't want to.” Arsinoe sets down the pitcher. It takes a moment, but eventually, she is able to rise.

“Your shoulder,” Mirabella says. “Be careful.”

“I'll get Jules to put it back in. I should go.”

“But,” Mirabella says, “the council and Luca . . . They will be waiting.”

“Oh,” Arsinoe says. She takes a step and holds her breath and then takes another. “I don't think they will. I think you made your point.”

“But if you let me . . .”

“Let you what? Listen, I know you think you did something
really grand just now. But I'm here. I'm caught. We all are.”

“You hate me, then?” Mirabella asks. “You want to kill me?”

“Yes, I hate you,” Arsinoe says. “I always have. I didn't try to escape so that I could spare you. It was not about you.”

Mirabella watches her sister limp toward the tent flap.

“I suppose I have been very stupid,” Mirabella says. “I suppose . . .”

“Stop sounding so sad. And stop looking at me that way. This is what we are. It doesn't matter that we didn't ask for it.”

Arsinoe grabs on to the flap of the tent. She hesitates as though she might say more. As though she might be sorry.

“I hate you a little less now,” she says quietly, and then she is gone.