The Marus Manuscripts (45 page)

S
imet was taken to a wing of the palace Maddy had never seen before. The royal doctor kept an infirmary there, made up of small rooms with comfortable beds. Simet lay in his bed, his face puffed and bruised, but he didn’t look as bad as Maddy had feared.

“What has happened?” Simet asked, his voice weak. “Why was I released?”

“Annison spoke to the king,” she answered.

His eyes grew wide. “She spoke to him? About what? What did she tell him? Is she in danger?”

“No,” Maddy assured him. “She is well, and you are free.”

“But what about Lord Hector? His purge is coming in only a few days.”

“Annison is doing the best she can to stop it.”

“But how?”

“By the inspiration of the Unseen One,” Maddy replied, repeating what Annison had told her to say.

“I don’t understand,” Simet said, sweat forming on his brow. “You have to tell me everything.”

“She’ll tell you nothing more,” a voice said from behind Maddy. It was the doctor. He stood looking like an unmade bed, his white hair sticking out in all directions. Had he been roused from bed to attend Simet? Probably. “This girl is going to leave you now so you can rest. I also want to tend to the results of your
interrogation.
” He said the word disdainfully, as if he’d seen too many of the victims of Lord Hector’s torturers.

“No, wait,” Simet requested.

The doctor intervened and forced Maddy out. She waved quickly from the door and said comfortingly, “Don’t worry.”

But Maddy herself was still worried. It was one thing to tell a clever story and get Simet released from the dungeon, but it was another to save hundreds if not thousands of believers from Hector’s purge. Maddy didn’t fully understand Annison’s thinking or how she still hoped to influence the king, but she hoped and prayed that Annison would succeed somehow.

As Maddy rounded the corner to the hall leading back to Annison’s chambers, Lord Hector stepped forward.

Maddy cried out.

“Calm down!” Lord Hector snapped. “You’ll come to no harm.”

Maddy continued to walk toward the chamber doors.

“You are the linchpin to all this somehow,” he observed, walking alongside her. “But how? Are you influencing the queen? What is your connection to Simet?”

“I’m sorry, but I must return to the queen,” Maddy said, picking up her pace.

“What’s the connection between the queen and Simet? Why did she intercede for him?
How
did she intercede for him?”

Maddy didn’t answer. The chamber doors were in sight now.

Lord Hector suddenly grabbed Maddy’s arm just as she reached the doors.

“Ouch!” she cried out, though it didn’t hurt much.

“What is the queen up to?” Hector demanded. “Is she for me or against me?”

“Does it matter?” Maddy asked as she grasped the door handle. “She’s only a simpleminded woman. What can she do to you?”

Maddy pushed the door open. The large bald-headed guard was just inside and approached them menacingly. He relaxed when he
saw Maddy but looked suspiciously at Lord Hector’s hand on her arm.

Lord Hector let go. “Tell your queen that she should be careful,” he warned. “I’ve been playing this game—and the king—for years.”

“Maybe the rules are changing,” Maddy retorted and closed the door on him.

Safe inside the chambers, she found herself grabbing a cup of water. She felt sick to her stomach from the sheer anxiety of everything that had happened. Once she felt calm again, she went into Annison’s bedroom to tell her that Simet was all right.

Maddy’s dreams that night were fitful. She saw hundreds of people being led to the gallows, their bodies swinging lifeless at the ends of hundreds of ropes. Lord Hector had succeeded with his purge. He had played the “game” better than Annison.

Then she sat at a table with the king and Lord Hector. They were eating lunch. But Annison’s chair was vacant.

“Where is she?” Maddy kept asking.

Finally Lord Hector smiled and replied, “She was a fanatic of the Old Faith. You will find her hanging outside.”

“No!” Maddy cried.

“What do
you
believe?” the king questioned her. “Are you a fanatic, too, or are you willing to embrace our
new
ideas?”

“What new ideas?” Maddy asked.

“Whatever ideas I approve of,” the king responded. He dabbed a napkin against his lips and tossed it carelessly on the table.

“What do you believe?” Lord Hector pressed. “Tell us now so we may decide whether you live or die.”

Maddy felt a burning in her eyes. “I believe in the Unseen One,” she replied, her voice quavering.

“I’ll kill you for that,” Lord Hector said with a smile as he tugged on a long rope hanging from the ceiling. A curtain suddenly parted on the far side of the room. Behind it was a small scaffold. A noose hung from the top. “Custom-built for a girl your size,” he noted.

“Are you
sure
you believe in the Unseen One?” the king asked with a yawn.

Maddy looked at the scaffold and then back at the king. “Yes,” she said as firmly as she could muster. “Yes, I do.”

And then she awoke in a cold sweat.

“Whatever happens at lunch tomorrow,” she found herself praying to the Unseen One, “let me be brave.”

The morning was filled with preparations for the lunch. A large table was placed in the center of the queen’s chambers for Annison, the king, and Lord Hector. Smaller tables were brought in to hold the various dishes of fowl, vegetables, fruits, and several types of bread.

Annison checked and double-checked to make sure everything was as perfect as it could be. Tabby huffed and puffed as she double-checked Annison’s double-checking. Maddy ran several errands from the chambers to the kitchen and had to endure the complaints of the royal chef as he upbraided her for interrupting him so much.

Finally the the king and Lord Hector arrived. Annison’s entire court stood at strategic places around the table—some to serve, some to make sure the cups were always filled with drinks, others to clear away any unused dishes, and the remainder to do whatever was asked of them. Maddy was assigned to be Annison’s special attendant, to stay near Annison in case she needed anything. Maddy was pleased to obey. She had feared she would be sent from the room and not allowed to watch what happened.

“What are you going to do?” Maddy whispered to Annison in the final seconds of silence before the knock came at the door.

“I don’t know,” Annison answered honestly.

“You mean you don’t really have a plan?” Maddy asked, surprised.

“I have planted some seeds, which I hope we will see grow,” she replied. “Unless, of course, the birds have plucked them from the ground before they’ve had a chance.”

Maddy wasn’t sure of what she meant, but there was no time to question further. A loud rapping sounded on the door. Tabby opened it, and the king and Lord Hector strode in together.

“Oh, my!” the king exclaimed as he looked at the table spread out before him. “I thought we were having a modest lunch. This looks more like a banquet.”

“I am undeserving of such a feast,” Lord Hector said. His voice was smooth as silk.

They sat down with Annison, and her staff began to serve them. They chitchatted about the wonderful weather they’d been having and the flowers in the garden, and the queen advised Lord Hector about some of the shops for men in Sarum where he could buy the best-made clothes. He seemed grateful for the advice.

Finally the meal was finished, and the servants brought them coffee, tea, and small chocolates. Both the king and Lord Hector made a fuss about how wonderful the food was and how gracious a hostess Annison had been.

“I do not know Your Highness very well,” Lord Hector admitted to her. “But I’m so pleased to find you as charming and delightful as I’d heard you were.”

“Thank you,” Annison replied.

“You have outdone yourself, my queen,” the king said contentedly. “Ask me for anything, anything at all, and it’s yours!”

Annison smiled. “I want only what you want, my king— truth and justice in our kingdom.”

The king leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Truth and justice, yes. Two things we must have. Shall we begin with truth?” The king then pulled Annison’s red-velvet book from his coat pocket and set it down on the table. “Do you read much, Hector?”

Lord Hector looked at it distrustfully. “Occasionally. Books of trade, mostly.”

“You should read stories,” the king suggested. “Stories can be far more interesting than books of trade. They can also nudge you toward great truths that might otherwise escape you.” He patted the book. “This story, for example. Simple as it is, it has caused me to reconsider many things.”

“What kinds of things, sire?” Lord Hector inquired.

“That man, for one, the guard who was in the dungeon . . .”

“Simet,” Annison reminded him.

“Yes, him.”

“I released him as you commanded, sire,” Lord Hector said quickly.

“I know you did. And I’ve been informed that he’s recovering nicely from your interrogations.”

“I did not interrogate him,” Lord Hector corrected him.

“No, you didn’t. True. Your man Reginald actually did the interrogation.”

Lord Hector raised an eyebrow. He clearly didn’t expect the king to know about Reginald—or anything to do with what went on in the dungeon. “Reginald?”

“You know him, of course. Suspicious-looking fellow with a rather high forehead.”

“Yes, I know him.”

“So you should. He does a lot of your dirty work, I understand.”

Lord Hector didn’t reply but waited to see what the king would say next.

“The same sort of dirty work he did for his previous employer.”

“I’m at a loss,” Lord Hector said. “I don’t know who his previous employer was.”

“But you must,” the king insisted. “His previous employer was that traitor Lord Terrence.”

Lord Hector feigned surprise. “Was he?”

“Yes, he was.” The king suddenly patted his pockets as if he’d forgotten something. He then dug into an inside pocket and produced a piece of paper. “Late last night, I got him to tell me all about it.”

Lord Hector paused for a moment, then signaled to one of the servants for more water. “You spoke to Reginald yourself?” he asked.

“At length,” the king replied. “You see, I read this story—written by my dear wife—and it caused me to think about the men who had tried to poison me. Of course, I hadn’t investigated the case myself. I left it to
you,
my trusted chancellor, to do that. Sadly, everyone who might have been forthcoming with information died from your interrogations.”

“I reported that to you at the time,” Lord Hector reminded him.

“One of the men was a servant,” the king went on. “You accused him of being in the employ of one of the two lords and claimed he had been the one who actually poisoned my cup. But I’ve learned from Reginald that the accused servant was innocent. It was Reginald who poisoned my cup.”

Lord Hector’s jaw dropped. “No, my king! Tell me it isn’t so!”

“I’m afraid it is. Reginald confessed it all.”

“I am stricken!” Hector declared, putting a hand to his mouth. “I had no idea I was employing a
traitor.
Until this moment, I didn’t know he was Terrence’s man.”