Rozalina’s face lost colour, but she met her stepmother’s eyes steadily. ‘I did not curse you, or your children, or my father. I simply told what I knew to be true. My father did not need to betray all the rules of honour and fire upon those he was parleying with. That was his choice. All I did was try to warn him.’
‘Well then, won’t you warn us what is to befall us in this new beginning of yours?’ Zakary said, his voice full of malice.
Rozalina was quiet for a moment. ‘Do not ask me, for I must always answer when asked,’ she said after a while, with obvious difficulty.
‘Oh, darling, thrill us!’
‘Dark forces gnaw at the roots of the throne, bright ice shall cut to the very bone,’ Rozalina replied, both hands gripping the edge of the table, her eyes staring with horror before her. ‘One will pierce your eye, for you do not see. And one shall pierce your tongue, for you do not speak. And one shall pierce your heart, for you do not feel.’
There was a charged silence, then Zakary stood up abruptly. ‘What is that meant to mean? Is that a threat?’
She looked at him and said, ‘I tell what I see. This day has been a long time coming. It is the day in which I shall fly or die, the day the king will be bled dry, the day when true love shall fall awry, the day when tears of blood shall cry—’
‘Make her stop,’ Adora cried.
The king sat frozen as if with terror, staring at his grand-daughter, while the crowd all whispered and wondered.
‘I must answer if asked,’ Rozalina said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Gag her!’ Zakary screamed. ‘Where’s her muzzle? Take her to the tower! She’s a witch, a wildkin witch!’
‘No!’ Zed cried. ‘You asked her, Zakary, and you now have your answer.’
‘But she wasn’t meant to curse me!’ Zakary wailed.
‘Curse or prophecy, I do not know the difference,’ Rozalina said. ‘You asked me and so I answered. If it is a foreseeing of the future, it is only a vision of what may happen. You can change your future, Lord Zakary, but somehow I don’t think you will.’
There were titters of amusement from the crowd. Zakary slowly sank back into his chair, two red patches of colour high on his white-powdered cheeks. The king’s hands were clenched on his shawl, and his face was grey.
‘You should not have asked me,’ Rozalina said sadly. ‘For now I have given voice to what I see, I have given it weight.’
‘This grows tedious,’ Lady Vernisha said. ‘Must we listen anymore? Muzzle the girl, Zabrak, and let us get back to our feast. The roast boar is getting cold.’
The king stirred and sighed, and made a slight gesture with one hand, his long, spiralling fingernails sketching a strange shape in the air. Two footmen came forward with the leather muzzle.
‘Wait!’ Rozalina cried, struggling to be free. ‘She comes! The Hag is here! She comes!’
Frost in
SPRING
CHAPTER 30
The Wildkin’s Curse
A SUDDEN ROAR OF EXCITEMENT FILLED THE FAR END OF THE COURTYARD.
Zed stared towards the gatehouse at the far end of the inner bailey. The tall gates were being dragged open. People shouted and clapped, and those at the other end of the courtyard stood up, craning their heads to see.
A trolley draped in a white tablecloth was being pushed towards the high table by a tall man in a rough coat and a wide-brimmed hat. A woman’s head was set upon the platter. Her skin was ashen, except about her throat where the skin was red and swollen and bloody, showing the jagged marks of some kind of blade.
Zed could not move nor speak. It was Mags’s head on that platter. His best friend’s mother.
A hush fell over the crowd.
The king clapped his hands together, as well as he could with his long, curling fingernails. ‘Good heavens, can it be? My dear Lord Zedrin, could this possibly be the head of the Hag?’
‘It is, Your Majesty,’ Zed replied through stiff lips. He bowed low, hiding his face, trying to force his brain to think. As he straightened from his bow, he stared helplessly at the severed head on its platter and felt a surge of sickness in his gullet.
The tall man swept off his wide-brimmed hat. He was tall and strong-looking, with matted grey-brown hair and beard. His skin was grimy, and his fingernails half-moons of black. When he opened his mouth to speak, his few remaining teeth were brown and rotten. Nonetheless, Zed recognised him at once.
It was his father, Pedrin.
Zed bit back a gasp, as Pedrin bowed and said, in a thick country accent, ‘Your Majesty! It’s my pleasure to present to you the head of the Hag, on behalf of the Count of Estelliana.’
Zed forced himself to bow to the king and to the crowd, who were all cheering and clapping. The king bowed in response, his eyes glittering with pleasure.
Rozalina stared at him in horror. Her face was parchment white, her eyes filled with horror and dismay. She got slowly to her feet.
‘I said that I was done with curses,’ she said in a low, shaking voice. ‘I was wrong. I thought that there was hope in this world, and honour still among the starkin. I was wrong.’
Silence fell upon the crowd. Shadows suddenly darkened the sun, and a chill breeze caught Rozalina’s dark hair and sent it swirling.
She raised her hand and pointed at the king. ‘You have used me to curse your enemies and bring darkness upon the houses of your foes. Now, I say, darkness shall fall upon your house.’
‘No,’ the king whispered. ‘What are you saying? Stop!’
‘This palace shall fall into desolation, and none shall dwell here but owls and bats. The Spear of Thunder will be found, and your throne shall be smote asunder. The rivers will run red and the sun shall turn black—’
‘No!’ the king howled. He grasped the edge of the table and hauled himself to his feet.
Adora gasped and Lady Vernisha cried out, ‘Somebody, stop her!’
‘Only when a blind boy can see and a lame girl walks on water shall peace come again to the land, and the rightful king win back the throne.’
‘No!’ The king seized the skewer from the head of the boar and lunged at Rozalina, and at once Zed leapt forward, pushing past the king and seizing Rozalina, whirling her away just in time, so that the skewer ripped through his velvet coat and into his arm, instead of plunging into Rozalina’s heart as the king had intended.
The king tottered. His legs had never had to support his weight before, his feet had never touched the ground. They could not bear him up. He swayed and lurched, falling forward from the dais and crashing onto the ground below.
Rozalina fell to her knees, her arms outstretched. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I had to speak.’
Adora was shrieking hysterically, her hands pressed against her white painted face. The astronomer leapt forward to the king, who lay still, sprawled on the stone at the foot of the dais. Zed pressed his napkin to the long wound in his arm, feeling sick to his stomach.
Next shall be the king-breaker, the king-maker,
though broken himself he shall be.
The words of the prophecy haunted him, as they had always haunted him. He looked to his father, who stood very still, one hand inside his coat. Pedrin shook his head very slightly. Although every muscle in Zed’s body cried out for him to seize Rozalina and fight his way to the palace gates right now, this very minute, he bowed his head. He knew he had no chance against a garrison of starkin soldiers. Patience and subtlety were needed now, two things Zed knew he had never had much use for before. He just hoped he could pull it off. The thought of failing his friends, his family, his one true love, was more than he could bear.
The crown rolled from the king’s head, spun round and round, teetering first one way then another, before falling to rest before Rozalina. Wonderingly she bent and picked it up, the star diamond blazing in the light of the wavering torches.
Lady Vernisha screamed, ‘Muzzle her! Take her away! And get me that crown!’
At once the soldiers
sprang to do Lady Vernisha’s bidding. Rozalina held up her hand. Everyone near her shrank away.
‘The king is dying,’ she said in a sorrowful voice. ‘Would you muzzle and imprison your new queen?’
Everyone looked from her to the king. Ambrozius very carefully rolled the old man over. He lay with his limbs all bent and wrong. Tears of blood slowly wept from the corners of his eyes. More blood oozed from his nostrils. A dark bruise slowly bloomed in the centre of his forehead, spreading like a thundercloud. And still the blood ran down his face, from his eyes and from his nose and from his ears.
‘Tears of blood shall cry,’ Zed said, in a voice that sounded very much unlike himself.
‘The king shall be bled dry,’ Rozalina answered.
‘What a bag of moonshine!’ Lady Vernisha said contemptuously. ‘You think to frighten us with this rubbish? The king will be perfectly well. Take him to his rooms! Call the physician! And muzzle that dreadful child. If the king dies, we’ll burn her for a witch, not make her queen, and that I promise you. Play, musicians! Let everyone sing and dance and make merry! Show the wildkin witch that we do not fear her insolent words. Take her away!’
Rozalina fought with all her strength, but she was held down and the muzzle forced over her head. Zed started forward, but Lady Vernisha made an impatient gesture and Zed found three swords at his throat. He slowly backed away, his hands held high, watching in misery and despair as Rozalina was dragged away to the Tower of Stars, kicking, twisting, striking out with her fists, fighting every step of the way. Adora had snatched the crown from her, and now held it clutched in her hands, her face exultant.
‘Good,’ Lady Vernisha said to Zed, her fat cheeks creased with amusement. ‘It would not do my reputation any good at all to be seen killing you in public. Will you take that head away? It’s of no use to you anymore, and quite frankly, it’s turning my stomach. We’re of a delicate constitution, aren’t we, pugsie-wugsie?’ She picked up her pug dog and kissed it on the mouth, and then waved her hand in dismissal.
‘If you will excuse me, I will see to the safe disposal of that head,’ Zed said through dry lips. He backed slowly away, but Lady Vernisha’s attention was on the king, whose shrivelled-up body was being loaded onto a litter.
‘Is he dead?’ she asked with interest.
‘It won’t be long,’ the astronomer said.
‘Adora!’ Lady Vernisha commanded. ‘Give me that crown. It’s mine now. Queen Vernisha. That sounds sweet, doesn’t it? And you, my treasure, are a princess again.’
Adora stared at her mother, the crown clutched close to her chest.
‘Now don’t make me cross,’ Lady Vernisha said. ‘You know I hate to be cross. Give me the crown, there’s a good girl.’
Very slowly Adora carried the crown to her mother, who ripped off her gaudy headdress and threw it to the ground, then perched the crown on top of her enormous white wig. ‘How does it look?’ she asked Zakary, who at once bowed to the ground and said, ‘Ravishing, Your Majesty, utterly ravishing!’
But his eyes were cold and furious, and his fists were clenched by his side.
Adora sat down limply.
Lady Vernisha snapped her fingers at the servants. ‘All these dramatics have made me hungry. Bring me a platter of that roast boar, with plenty of truffles. Yum-yum, eh, pugsie-wugsie?’
Zed, meanwhile, had stepped down from the high table and walked very slowly and very steadily away from the table, his father trundling the trolley along behind him. They did not speak.
Zed did not really know where he was supposed to take a severed head. All he knew was that he had to get away from the high table before someone decided to kill him. He stopped the steward, who was standing by the fountain wringing his hands in dismay, and said, ‘What shall I do with the head?’
‘Blazing balls, you think I know?’ he snapped. ‘Take it to the zoo! Maybe one of the wildkin will eat it.’
Zed did as he was told, knowing only that he had to get himself and his father and Mags’s head away from view, so he could have a chance to think what to do next.
Behind their glass walls, all the wildkins leapt and screeched and shouted and sobbed. Only Lord Grim did not stir. He stood hunched in his pen, his back to the glass, his cloak spread wide, a dark figure wrapped in shadows.
A lackey showed them to a side door and went to find the zookeeper, who was, he said, down in the kitchens enjoying the servants’ feast. Zed shut the door behind him and leant against it.
‘Leeblimey, what a shemozzle!’ the severed head said.
Zed stared at it in stunned silence. Even though he knew the severed head was a trick of some kind, it was still startling to see the eyes open and the lips move.
‘No need to goggle,’ the head said. ‘Help me get this blasted platter off!’
Pedrin smiled briefly at Zed, and swiftly broke the silver platter in two and lifted it away from Mags’s head. He whipped away the tablecloth, showing Mags’s body—still thankfully attached to her head—crouched inside the trolley. It took a moment or two to dismantle the trolley, but at last Mags was able to rise and stretch and step clear, saying, ‘Is that the wildkin princess? My blood ran cold at that curse of hers. I was sorely tempted to open my eyes and intone, “The time of your doom has fallen upon you!” but I didn’t think it would help.’
Mags’s words helped dispel some of the horror of the scene. Zed laughed shakily, and Pedrin said, ‘Well, thank Liah you didn’t!’
He turned and embraced Zed, saying, ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t warn you, Zed, but it was too risky. Briony told us you had a spy in your camp and we didn’t dare risk being discovered.’
‘It’s so good to see you . . . but I almost had a heart attack when I saw Mags’s head!’
‘It seemed the only way to get inside the palace,’ Mags said. ‘There are guards everywhere.’
‘What are you doing here? Do you know what they’ll do to you if they discover you here?’ Zed demanded.
‘Of course I do,’ Mags said. ‘But I couldn’t let my only son venture into this pit of vipers and do nothing to help. A pigeon brought a message, you see, from Briony. She saw some very disturbing things in the Well of Fates.’
‘It must’ve have been so dreadful for you, seeing Ziggy murdered before your eyes like that,’ Pedrin said, slinging one arm about Zed’s shoulders. ‘I’m so very sorry, Zed.’
‘It was awful,’ Zed admitted. ‘I had to fight a whole pack of them off, there was blood everywhere . . .’ His voice faltered.
‘You did well, we’re proud of you,’ Pedrin said. ‘But we were sure that your life was in danger, and Priscilla’s too. So Briony sent her grogoyle to pick me up at Estelliana and then we flew to meet Mags. The last week or so has been the most terrifying of my life, I promise you.’
‘Me too,’ Mags admitted. ‘For no matter how much Briony reassured us the grogoyle had sworn not to harm us, it’s no easy thing to march up to one and jump on its back.’
‘The way it swooped and soared and did aerial somersaults, I swear it was trying to scare us to death.’
‘We couldn’t bring the grogoyle too close to the palace without being seen, and so he dropped us some way down the coast and we sneaked into the city at night and got everything ready. It took us ages to paint my neck realistically. Do you like it?’ Mags grinned and waved her hands about her throat, which still looked as if someone had taken an axe to it.
‘It’s absolutely gruesome,’ Zed said rather shakily.
‘So where’s Priscilla?’ Pedrin demanded. ‘Is she safe? Why wasn’t she with you?’
‘Things got rather dicey here today,’ Zed said. ‘Cilla let it slip that Merry was your son, Mags, and indeed if you hadn’t got here when you did and caused such a diversion, I think I’d be in the dungeons now.’
‘Oh, no,’ Pedrin cried.
‘I told her to get ready to leave, then slip out the side gate and go down to the harbour and order our ship to be readied. I sent Au
bin with a message hours and hours ago, but haven’t seen him since and have a horrible feeling something’s happened to him too.’
‘Good work!’ Pedrin said. ‘I’ve been worried sick about how to get you all away from here. The grogoyle can really only carry two.’
‘What about Merry?’ Mags demanded. ‘Where is he?’
Zed took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. He’s been missing for hours.’
‘Missing? Merry’s missing?’ Her whole body stiffened.
‘And Liliana too. You know we had to find seven feathers to fix a magic cloak? The thing is, Merry went this morning to get the last of the feathers . . . and he never came back.’
‘What?’ Mags seized his arm in a strong grip.
‘Lili went to look for him, and I haven’t seen her since either,’ Zed said. ‘Heaven knows where she’s got to.’
‘I’m here,’ Liliana said. They turned in surprise and saw her standing in the doorway that led into one of the pens. Lord Grim loomed behind her, like a shadow cast by a sputtering candle.
‘Lili!’ Zed cried and leapt forward to hug her.
She hugged him back but said, ‘We’ve got no time to lose. I know where Merry is. He’s been tossed into a pit in the dungeons. I couldn’t get him out, though I tried my best, I swear I did.’
‘We’ll get him out,’ Mags said determinedly.
‘That’s not all, though,’ Lili said, and quickly told Mags and Zed about the plot to murder Rozalina. She described the rows of glass caskets filled with fusillier fuel, and the long fuse that led out of the cellar, ready to be ignited. ‘Merry thinks they plan to do it once the fireworks begin. That way it will seem like an accident. If anyone does suspect foul play, it’s us they’ll be pointing at, since it was Aubin and his men who moved all the caskets.’
‘Aubin?’ Zed could not believe it. Aubin had been like an uncle to him. At the thought, he remembered Stiga’s words again. You fear the wrong fate. Fear those you love, not those you hate. If only he had listened to her!