As Old As Time: A Twisted Tale (Twisted Tale, A) (29 page)

He suddenly sat back, finished.

With much gentler, slower motions he swept the now-loosened dirt away.

“There,” he said sadly.

Belle leaned over his shoulder to look…

And nearly screamed.

There, at the bottom of a low trench, lay a half-rotted, dry and bony corpse.

Belle realized after a moment that she had never actually fainted.

Heroines in books—and even sometimes heroes—always had violent reactions to finding skeletons or dead bodies.

But after she got over the initial fright of seeing the ivory skull bulging through the papery skin and the eye sockets and the whole thing in its rotted clothes, well, she found she was more than a little curious. She had never been this close to a body this far gone before.

The Beast’s face had turned to a terrible look, somewhere between a grimace and a snarl, his teeth all bared and his lips pulled back.

He leaned over the corpse, searching the body with claws retracted. After a moment he pulled up what he had been apparently looking for: a belt buckle, bits of the leather still clinging to it. A horse’s head had been worked into the upper part of the clasp.

“This is…Alaric Potts,” the Beast said thickly. “My parents presented this to him when he got married…”

Belle covered her mouth. For a moment she
did
feel like fainting. It was one thing to see a random corpse, and quite another to realize that the person they had been talking about just minutes before was here, reduced to bone and sinew, long, long deceased. This body had been the Beast’s favorite servant, father to the little teacup…

“They told me he ran away. Because of
me
!”

The Beast howled mournfully for a second time that afternoon. Belle had to cover her ears; his cry echoed inside the stables like nothing she had ever heard before.

When he finally quieted, he put the belt buckle back on the body—delicately, as if laying an amulet or sword on the body of an ancient king like Beowulf.

“But…but why was he…” Belle wanted to say
buried there,
but it was fairly obvious that it wasn’t a sanctioned—or known about—burial.

The Beast, showing no reticence despite his sadness—and maybe exhibiting a touch of anger—reached into the trench and carefully pulled the body out. As it twisted toward the floor, a knife could plainly be seen sticking out of his sternum.

Belle steadied herself.

“Murder,” she whispered. “Plain, simple murder.”

The Beast eyed the body speculatively. “Not simple,” he finally said. “Stabbed from the front. Either a second person held his arms behind him, to keep him from fighting, or…he was killed by someone he knew. And didn’t expect it.”

Belle knelt by the body, mind whirling. She still couldn’t tell if this was the rider from her vision. “What kind of knife is that?” she asked.

With less delicacy than she would have liked, the Beast pulled the metal thing out of Alaric’s body.

He held it up, frowning. It was much longer and narrower than any sort of hunting, eating, or other everyday knife. The entire thing—even the handle—was metal. The butt, at the end of the grip, was almost as thin as wire, and bent in a heart shape.

“Strange,” the Beast said.

Belle narrowed her eyes. “It looks more like a surgeon’s instrument than a knife. I’ve read Joseph Charrière’s book on surgery—this looks likes something out of that.”

“Why read a book on
surgery
?” the Beast asked in distaste.

Belle shrugged. “It was the only new book at the bookstore last winter. I had nothing else to read. I wonder what it means. Was he killed by a doctor, or a doctor’s assistant? Or was it something he used on the horses?”

“I don’t think so,” the Beast said. “I don’t think anything he did with the horses required anything that delicate.”

Belle frowned. “Is there anything else on him that might help us out?”

The Beast’s expression was unreadable. This was, she reminded herself, his favorite servant, even if he did as a child think of servants as being of a different class than kings and queens. But he must have seen the logic in her suggestion, and so he began to pat down the body, looking for anything else that might be a clue.

His eyes grew large as his claws tapped against something unexpected under the cloth of the tattered jacket. With claws extended like pinchers, he pulled out what looked like a little leather-bound booklet.

Belle hastened over to his side and used her more nimble fingers to gently take it from him. She opened it slowly; its pages were beginning to fall out from dampness and rot.

“What does it say?” the Beast asked eagerly.

“‘June fourth,’” she read carefully, turning to a random page. “‘Clarissa’s a sweet one, but not overblessed in the department of fidelity. Sadly, not marriage material, though pleasant enough to look upon.’ Ah, this is a…rather
personal
journal.”

The Beast shrugged uncomfortably. “Keep reading.”

“‘June twenty-first. Champion has a small abscess in his right hind leg, beneath the knee. Worried about it. All the good animal-speakers are gone…A poultice and charm from Baldrick would have fixed the poor boy right up. What to do?’”

“Horses,” the Beast said with a gentle smile. “Just as important as women.”

“Only for
him.
Let’s see what the last entry is,” Belle said, trying to sound pragmatic, not miffed. “‘August tenth. All of the horses miserable—I know the quarantine is for the best, but I’m afraid for their sanity. I’ll have to take a different one out tonight when I go to M’s.’”

“I wonder what ‘M’s’ is,” Belle said thoughtfully. “Whatever it is, it must be a horse-ride away.”

“Is there anything about who his killer is?” the Beast asked impatiently.

“No, it doesn’t say, ‘Oh no, I hear my own murderer sneaking up the stairs, and he is revealing himself to be…!’”

“There aren’t any stairs in the stable.”

“You know what I mean. There doesn’t seem to be any hint of mischief at all,” she said, flipping pages. “The last pages seem to be just lists…and names of people…and places…North Country Road? South Boulder Bypass? River Run?”

“Those are the names of all the major roads in and out of the kingdom,” the Beast said, reading over her shoulder. He tapped a claw at the columns of information. “I recognize some of those names…they were captains of the guards. These are lists of who was guarding which border crossing and when.”

“That seems like an odd thing for a stablemaster to be interested in—unless he was smuggling,” Belle said thoughtfully. She flipped further back in the book. “‘May sixteenth. Found a goblin-kith hiding in the hayloft. Poor thing—a bunch of hooligans almost got her, so she tried to run away through the woods—but the border patrol turned her back. Violently. What do I do?

“‘June seventeenth. Goblin-kith still here. People are starting to get suspicious. If word reached the king and queen…or any of them…that I was harboring a
charmante
, who knows what would happen to me. Or her. Been sneaking her stuff from the kitchen, thanks to B’s generosity and discretion.’ B?” Belle asked, confused.

“Beatrice,” the Beast supplied. “Mrs. Beatrice Potts.”

“Oh.
Beatrice
.” Belle repeated the name and thought of the teapot, trying to make the human image match the porcelain one. It was hard. She went back to reading.

“‘June eighteenth. I think I have a plan. After midnight I’ll take the goblin-kith on the back of one of the bigger mounts to M’s place, on the other side of the river. Either I’ll try one of the old hunting paths or find out if there’s a sympathetic guard on the western road. I’m sure M and his wife will help out.’…”

“He was helping the
charmantes
escape,” the Beast said thoughtfully.

“But is that enough to be
murdered
for? Even by the most crazy, anti-magic person? Helping
one
charmante
?”

She skipped back a few more pages, moving her finger along the text.

“‘February twenty-seventh: My Wedding Day! I am going to be happy for the rest of my life with B, and hopefully she will make me a bit fatter, too!’”

“I remember that,” the Beast said softly. “Everyone in the castle—I mean, all of the servants—were so happy for them. There was cake and champagne and I managed to sneak out and see a little bit of it.”

“‘Wish M and all had been there. They sent a rose somehow—a beautiful white one that smelled like heaven. I couldn’t tell B or anyone directly that it was probably magic, of course. But I did tell her to keep it safe in her drawers.’”

Belle’s eyes widened.

“Magic rose?
M’s
place? It’s…
Maurice.
M is for Maurice! Alaric brought the goblin to M’s place on the
other side of the woods. My
place! My home! And I never
noticed
this?”

“You were a child. It was at night. Your parents kept you safe, separate from it,” the Beast ventured.

Belle rubbed her forehead. Her mother, who had abandoned her and laid curses on eleven-year-olds, at risk to herself and family, sheltered and provided escape for a poor creature fleeing persecution. Why was she so complicated? Why couldn’t she have just been…
all
good, like a fairy godmother in a story, or
all bad,
like a witch?

She flipped back to the previous entry she had read. “‘People are starting to get suspicious. If word reached…any of them…who knows what would happen to me. Or them. I’m putting R and her family in danger…’”

The Beast looked at the corpse skeptically.

“It does seem unlikely that someone killed him because he saved one person….”

Belle shrugged. “Yes, I don’t know. But my mother’s disappearance…his disappearance…They knew each other, they
worked
together on this…and she warned me about
betrayal.
”

The Beast raised an eyebrow. “Maybe
he
betrayed her. And
she
killed him.”

“I don’t think someone who curses an entire castle and animates plant statues is going to resort to sticking someone with a knife,” Belle said dryly. “But if you’re right about him being murdered by someone he
knew,
then it was possibly someone who also knew my mother and father. Someone who betrayed all three of them.”

The Beast scruffled the back of his neck with a giant paw, his usual gesture when he was embarrassed or stumped.

“How does that help us find your mother?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Belle admitted. “But it certainly changes the way things look—for me.”

Maybe her mother didn’t abandon them. Maybe her mother was
murdered
—or otherwise disappeared—and taken away from them. Belle felt a funny pain in her body melt, a tiny thread of resentment she hadn’t realized she had had all those years. When she said, “It was fine, just Papa and me,” she never realized how defensive she was being.

But her mother had never meant to leave her.

“If your mother is dead now, can we break the curse?” the Beast asked, trying to put it gently.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

She sighed and continued flipping through the journal, looking for clues.

“Listen to this: ‘April third: Today I am a father. Charlemagne Alistair Potts, born healthy and screaming his wee head off this morning! B is fine, healthy as one of my horses. Just think! Someday he and M’s little lass could meet….I like older women—maybe my little Charles will, too!’”

She looked at the Beast expectantly. He looked, as usual, confused.

“Chip,”
she said. “Charles is
Chip.
”

“Yes,” the Beast said, still not understanding the depth of her reaction.

“We would have been the same age. Almost,” she said impatiently. “He is five now—five forever. He was five at the time of the curse, ten years ago. He would be only really a few years younger than I am. If he aged normally. If he wasn’t a…teacup.”

“Oh,” the Beast said, thinking about it. “Yes, he would be fifteen. Maybe my manservant. Unless he left to seek his fortune. He…never got to do that.” The Beast shivered, a strange movement from him, usually so controlled until he had a rage. Sorrow filled his large eyes.

They remained silent for a moment in the half-light of the stable, staring into space, or at the dead man’s journal, or at nothing at all.

After a moment Belle and the Beast turned to look at each other, at the same time, both obviously thinking the same thing.

“We have to go back. And tell Mrs. Potts,” Belle said gently.

“I would rather stay out here. Forever,” the Beast said honestly. “I could…catch mice, maybe….”

“Perhaps it will be easier for her now,
knowing
what happened to her husband,” Belle said with a sigh. Her papa had been a pallbearer and gravedigger at more than one funeral in the village. Although a social outcast, he was also considered a decent, strong-backed person who could be counted on to do what was required. Even in the modern, enlightened world of the eighteenth century, death and sadness and bearing bad tidings were a part of everyday life.

Belle took the Beast’s arm and they walked slowly and sadly back to the castle.