The Hedgewitch Queen

its stultifying protocol, even if there was sure to be dancing afterward, and a wonder or two of illusion worked.

Court sorcery is all violence and air-and-light illusion, and my interest in the more practical peasant’s magic was, while odd, not entirely improper. It was simply a mark of my provincial upbringing, or a childhood nurse versed in the rustic art.

Though a di Rocancheil has nothing to be shamed of when it comes to blood. My mother’s family is of the oldest and finest nobility, that of the sword; my ancestors rode to war as boon companions of Edouard Angouleme the Merovian, first conquerer of Arquitaine. Twas no small thing to be a di Rocancheil, and my father’s family of Vintmorecy was no less noble. If I chose to waste my time with herbs and healing, twas nobody’s business but mine.

Besides, it was the only area of my life that decidedly pleased me. So much of life is what one can stand; it is a relief to have a small corner be otherwise. Or so I have found.

I let out a small sigh. Another long slow afternoon of reading aloud from romances or doing needlework in frames before the banquet, maybe broken by a maidendance or two. I would be called upon to give a lesson on Tiberian verbs or needled about my hedgewitchery, and Lisele would turn her sharp tongue on whoever needled me.

I often thought Lisele protected me because I was a pet without claws, an ugly girl with no prospects except a noble name and no chance of making a good marriage, since I seemed to have forgotten men existed. Or so twas said. I held my peace, though I longed at times to point out that men were troublesome creatures indeed, and a marriage sometimes worse confinement than the endless round of dresses and dancing. As an unmarried girl I could study Tiberian and hedgewitchery if I wished. As a woman with a Consort, who knew? Then there was the trouble of childrearing, though any hedgewitch can mix a draught to ease that burden before it begins.

Besides, nobles of the sword must seek the King’s leave to marry. I had not yet met the man who might prove worth such an endeavor, noble or no. I had been at Court too long to trust any courtier’s promises, no matter how I might bandy light words and glances.

What else is there, at Court? Empty words, light glances, and being on my guard not merely for myself but for Lisele as well. I loved her, but sometimes I had the utterly disloyal thought that she was not suited for a royal life.

I climbed the stairs and finished the last of the bread and jam, licking my lips and my fingers in a decidedly provincial fashion. I hummed a lately famous tune about the Chivalier Coeurre di Jaronne, skirts and eardrops both swinging merrily, and entered the gallery running alongside the armor hall. I could reach the women’s rooms from there, and—

“And what are you about here?” someone snarled, and there was the sound of a blow.

I stopped dead, the wet rag clenched in my hand. Growing up at Court meant I needed but a single word to place a voice. Yet why would anyone be in this hall? Especially him?

“You cannot prevent it. Tis too late.” A whining, breathless, triumphant sentence.

I recognized that voice, too, and I peered around the corner, the damp rag in my suddenly-hot fingers. I twitched my skirts back without thinking about it — Court had taught me one thing at least: skirts may be seen around a corner when a woman eavesdrops.

I had to peek past a tapestry, and could see two men in the hall.

Baron Simieri and the Captain of the Guard. I winced inwardly. I did not know the Baron well — he was the King’s Minister Primus, born common for all he was granted a title, and he did not participate in much of the dances and fetes that are the female side of Court life. I had danced with him once, a pavane at Lisele’s Coming-of-Age. His hands had been wet and trembling, and he danced woodenly. None of the ladies-in-waiting liked him, but he was only the Minister Primus, not even a noble. Too busy to court a lady, so we did not have to bear his clumsiness for long if at all.

The other man was…something else. Tristan d’Arcenne. He was tall and serious, always in attendance on the King, overseeing the endless drills and training for the King’s Guard. Quite a few of the Court ladies had left nosegays for him, but to my knowledge he had never shared a pillow with any of them. Court rumor had him painted as the King’s Left Hand and assassin — but, of course, he could not be. If he were, there would be no rumors.

On the other hand, anyone chosen to be the King’s Left Hand would be wise enough — and skilled enough with rumor and innuendo — to divert suspicion away from himself by dropping a choice word in the right quarters. So, there.

The Captain of the Guard had the Minister Primus by the throat, held against the dusty tapestried wall. The Primus, a soft, small man, had always reminded me of an oiled farrat.

D’mselle Maratine had a farrat she trained to beg for sweets. The poor thing did not live long, stuffed to its back teeth with chocolat pettites. A faint flash of nausea went through me. What was happening here?

“The details, Simieri. For my edification, you understand.” Tristan’s voice was low but not cultured at all just now — the accent of a nobleman had turned harsh, with an undercurrent of violence.

I had danced with him twice, once at Lisele’s Coming-of-Age, and again two months ago at the Festival of Skyreturn. D’Arcenne did not dance, and the fact he had done so twice with me caused some comment.

The rumormongers were doomed to disappointment, since he said not a word to me beyond requesting the turn and afterward giving formulaic thanks. He was tall and moved well, his dark hair long as was a chivalier’s fashion now. He had held my hand and watched me oddly during the dance, only occasionally glancing over my shoulder to direct us through the whirling crowd. I was sure I had imagined his hand firmly on my waist but trembling slightly, and his flush when he thanked me afterward. He was a fine figure on horseback, even if rumor did paint him as a bit of a fop.

As well as the Left Hand. Two very contradictory things, indeed.

“Too…late,” Simieri choked. I risked peering a little further around the corner. The tapestry here was red and green, a treatment of the last War of the Rose. A particularly ambitious and awful treatment, I might add. “No… time…”

“Why? Why here?” Tristan shook the Primus and shoved him back against the wall again, and I winced. The small man’s head bounced against stone. “Tell me!”

“Tis…too…late,” Simieri repeated, and a queer rattling noise rose from him.

My nostrils flared. There was a breath of sorcery in the dusty air, of rancid apples and matted fur. My hedgewitch training cataloged the scent, compared it to old treatises, and gave me an answer I did not believe. Apples, and a wet dog. A poison killspell?

But why? Poison killspells had not been used for over a hundred years; their onset was too delayed to fine- tune the effects.

I noticed the passageway I traveled almost every day was disarranged. A small end table of fragrant wood obediently growing thicker with dust now lay smashed on the floor; there was a spatter of something fresh, wet, and red on the bare stone floor. A Ch’min vase lay in pieces, and two of the tapestries were ripped to shreds.

What happened here?

Tristan d’Arcenne stepped back, and Simieri’s body fell limply to the floor. From where I stood I could see the Minister’s face, twisted into a grotesque, plum-colored mask. A thin thread of something dark trickled from his nose, and his eyes puffed shut with the killspell’s swelling.

The Captain of the Guard swore viciously, and I was too shocked to remain silent. I do not know if my gasp was very loud, but it certainly had an effect.

He whirled, and the sound of a blade leaving its sheath stunned me further. He carried a sword by the grace of the King — the Guard was trusted implicitly, and the Captain even more so. The bright length of metal glittered in the hall’s gloom.

It looked very sharp.

Tristan d’Arcenne regarded me over the length of his sword. He was breathing heavily, and so was I. The Minister Primus lay dead on the floor, smashed like the vase and the end table.

No few of the older ladies-in-waiting had succumbed to fever; I had even nursed Lady Atterlina di Herence a year ago until she died. One would have to be blind to avoid seeing death in the world. Yet I had never attended a hanging or a beheading, it being faintly improper for a young noblewoman to see such a thing with the common