The Queen's Necklace (20 page)

“You have simply made a mistake. You have not followed my directions precisely, and there is nothing more to be said.”

But there
was
something more, as the coachman and the footmen all seemed to imply by their uneasy silence, by their continued stillness.

“Well?” said Jarred, with a deep sigh. “You do not mean to tell me this is the home of my friend, Marius Bouvreuil? We have been there a dozen times before!”

The coachman was a strapping young man: tall, fair, and muscular. Six feet eight from the top of his powdered wig to the soles of his well-polished boots, he made a broad, imposing figure in his furlined
cloak and his long, full-skirted coat, as he stood with a whip in one hand, a big tricorn hat in the other; yet he shuffled his feet and looked abashed when Jarred questioned him.

“Well?” the king repeated.

For answer, the driver stuck his whip under one arm, reached into a pocket of his capacious velvet coat, and produced a folded triangle of thick paper. “You said nothing to me, sir, about Mr. Bouvreuil, when we set out at noon. And here is the direction, exactly as you wrote it yourself.”

Jarred took the paper, opened it, examined the contents minutely. The writing was certainly his own, but he had no memory of penning the wor—

He felt a sudden mental wrench, and suddenly the memory was there. He gave an embarrassed laugh. “Yes, I remember now. I do beg your pardon. Mr. Bouvreuil has changed his lodgings. I can't think how I came to forget. Though I will admit, I never imagined he would live in a place like this.”

The house in question was about a mile from the city, a decaying mansion set well back from the road against a dark backdrop of hemlocks and firs, surrounded by its own park. It was a terrifying old house—or, at least, so thought Jarred, as he descended from the coach a second time and peered through the wrought-iron gates.

If his own Lindenhoff palace was like something out of an old story, the white-and-gold castle of some extraordinarily blessed fairy-tale prince, these two wings with a single large turret sprouting like a mushroom between them made the perfect setting for one of the darker passages in the same kind of story. The tower was as round as a drum, though it ended in a wickedly elongated sharp-pointed roof. The white paint and plaster covering the original stone had grown patchy in places. Above all, there were too many strangulating vines climbing up the walls, twining around the balconies,
too many windows peeking through the ivy and bramble, with too many tiny panes of glass glinting red in the dying sunlight, like the faceted eyes of some great insect. Jarred felt that he knew this place, though he had never been here before: it was the witch's house where the princess lay sleeping in a crystal coffin, under a pall of cobwebs, in a room full of dust.

At this, the king gave himself a sharp mental shake. There were many of these ancient mansions on the outskirts of Tarnburgh. The only question was: How had he come to be standing outside the gates of this one?

He had set out this frosty afternoon in his little gilt-and-mahogany coach to visit his invalid friend, Marius Bouvreuil. Something had impelled him to direct the coachman to this particular house—though up until today, he had always believed that Marius lived in another part of town.

He sat down on the steps of the coach, struggling to remember. He recalled that Marius had written asking him to visit. What he did
not
remember was any mention of this particular house, or a change of lodgings. Yet someone had told him—

He could hear the coachman and the footmen consulting together; though they spoke in whispers, he could guess the drift of their conversation. The coach-horses were steaming and stamping in the cold. Even without looking, Jarred knew that his guards and their high-spirited mounts must be growing equally restive.

There was a jingle of spurs, as one of the guards dismounted and came striding in Jarred's direction. Sweeping off his plumed hat, he went down on one knee before the king. “Your Majesty, are we to wait here longer, or go back to the palace?”

Suddenly, Jarred realized how bizarre his own behavior must appear. It was not like him to be thoughtless of his men and horses. He glanced up at the sky. The sun had disappeared behind the trees in back of the house, and the sky was streaked with the brilliant colors
of an arctic sunset. He must have been sitting here, undecided, for at least an hour.

He signaled to one of the footmen. “Go up to the door and knock. I will follow in another minute.”

The footman withdrew. Jarred picked up his hat and his sable cloak, rose slowly to his feet. Instructing his guards to stay where they were, he followed the lackey past the iron gates, down a meandering flagstone path, past a frozen fountain, then up a short flight of steps to a pair of heavy doors.

He arrived just as one of those doors was swinging wide open, and the porter inside bowing very low and respectfully invited him to enter.

As he crossed the threshold, Jarred shivered; the room was as chilly as the air outside. It had a great empty floor of black-and-white tiles, a vaulted ceiling, some tapestries worked in faded silks along one wall. There was also a fine oak staircase, leading up to a shadowy gallery. What it really needed was a roaring fire, and five or six branches of candles. But there was no fireplace, just a long dark shaft in the center of the floor, covered by a wrought-iron grating; the only light came from two brass lanterns, hanging by chains from the ceiling.

Jarred cleared his throat. “Mr. Bouvreuil—is at home this afternoon?”

The porter did not answer his question directly. He bowed, declared that he would inform his master that His Majesty had arrived; relieved Jarred of his hat, cloak, and gloves; and disappeared through a low doorway, leaving the king with a hundred questions spinning through his head, and nothing to occupy him while he waited.

Jarred glanced curiously around him. There was an odd sort of circular mirror on the wall near the stairs, the antique bronze frame in the form of a serpent—and a suit of Goblin armor up on the landing. Wandering over to look at the glass, he saw his vision blur, his
image distort. The walls of the room tilted, and the entire perspective of the room shifted.

Dazed and confused, Jarred thought for a moment that he was going to faint; he reached out with one hand to steady himself by gripping a chair. But as soon as he shifted his gaze from the mirror to the old wainscot chair, he realized that it was the
glass
that was wrong, not anything the matter with him. Its misshapen reflection of the room and his own figure had created a visual disorientation, which alone was the source of his momentary confusion.

“Your Majesty, what an unexpected honor,” said a high, sweet voice, apparently out of the air above him.

Jarred looked back over his shoulder. A fair-haired girl in a black silk gown was smiling down at him from the landing. Turning to get a better look at her, he drew in his breath sharply; there was something uncannily familiar about her face.

As he tried to remember where he had seen her before, the girl came tripping down the steps, one hand sliding along the polished oak banister, the other extended in welcome. It was not until she had reached the bottom of the stairs and dropped a curtsy, not until he was gallantly lifting her cold little hands, one after the other, and brushing kisses across her fingertips, that he finally recognized her.

“You are the girl who disappeared without a trace.”

He experienced a brief twinge of pleasure, flavored by bewilderment. There was something—something unexpected about her. Of course—she had worn her hair powdered the night of the ball, and he would never have imagined, with those black, black eyes, these glittering masses of golden curls. But it was certainly her: dark eyes, white skin, pointed chin, high cheekbones, and all.

“Mademoiselle, I wonder if anyone told you: I've had men searching every corner of the city, trying to discover your whereabouts for the last twelve weeks. And then to find you here in the home of my old friend—”

His voice trailed off. He had just caught a glimpse of the necklace of milky white stones encircling her throat, the crystal pendant glowing against the black gauze scarf discreetly filling in her low neckline. Again, he was assailed by a dizzying disorientation, a sickening sense of total confusion. “This is—this
is
the home of Marius Bouvreuil?”

She shook her head until the blonde curls danced. “Oh no, Your Majesty. I'm afraid I don't know who your Mr. Bouvreuil is.”

It was then that she apparently became aware of his incapacity. As his grip on her hand loosened, hers on his tightened. “Sir, you are ill. May I show you into the parlor?” Her pale face blurred, then came sharply back into focus.

Jarred nodded his head, unable to speak. But her cold little hand was pulling him inexorably on. Too giddy to think or to act on his own, he allowed her to lead him. He stumbled into a room that seemed to have too many mirrors, too many tiny dancing lights. In response to a gentle push, he sat down awkwardly on the narrow seat of a high-backed chair.

“I—I thank you,” he managed, as the room continued to spin around him in a dazzle of mirrors and light. “I can't think what came over me. I can only apologize—”

“There is no need for you to apologize.” As she spoke, she went down gracefully on her knees beside his chair. “And nothing for you to worry about either.”

By concentrating on her and her alone, Jarred discovered that he could see much better. Her sharp little face was nearly on a level with his own; her silken gown, far from being an unrelieved black as he had first supposed, was covered with a design worked in fine silver threads, like a network of cobwebs over the silk.

“You are the princess.”

She gave a violent start. “The—princess, Your Majesty?”

“The princess in the story. The one who slept for hundreds and
hundreds of years, waiting to reclaim her kingdom, while the great grey spiders covered her coffin with their webs.” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I beg your pardon, I seem to be babbling the most childish nonsense. But it is only because of the pattern on your gown.”

Puzzled, she looked down at the dark silk. Then she gave a throaty laugh of her own. “You are quite right, Your Majesty. I
have
been asleep for—hundreds and hundreds of years, but I am awake now.”

Jarred moved uneasily in his chair. Her pose, kneeling on the floor at his feet, was both submissive and mildly erotic. There had been, too, something deeply and oddly suggestive in her laugh, particularly coming from one so young. All this awoke in him a strange hunger, an intense craving he was uncertain how to define. It seemed to involve pleasures utterly unconnected with the ordinary lusts of the body, yet there was a perversity about it that made him feel suddenly ashamed.

Whether or not she guessed what he was feeling, he could not tell. A burning blush passed over him. Beyond all doubt it would be better for them both if she did not know. But her expression was entirely unreadable as, without a word, she reached up behind her neck and unclasped the double string of white stones.

A moment later, he felt the weight of the necklace in his hands.
A cold thrill passed over his skin and shivered along his nerves, an excess of pleasure as deeply disturbing as it was exquisite
. And suddenly—he was not certain why—Jarred was very, very frightened.

T
he hour was almost midnight and the moon had set, but the sky blazed with stars. Jarred stood at an open casement window in the Lindenhoff clock-tower, looking down at his city. In other places, spring was hastening on apace; here it would still be winter for many long weeks. The equinox had come and gone, but still there was snow in the streets of Tarnburgh and the dew froze on the roof tiles every night.

Jarred allowed his gaze to wander further: over the glittering rooftops—over the city walls—past the crumbling Maglore palaces on the outskirts of town—past the barren ice-fields and the tiny, isolated villages—all the way to the jagged white peaks of a mountain range on the distant horizon. One of the peaks was smoking; a pale glow of fire stained the snow the color of roses. Soon, he knew, the mountain would stir and grumble, there would be a fall of ash. But while the wind remained in the east, Tarnburgh and the surrounding villages would not be affected.

As for their own volcano, it slumbered peacefully and would continue to do so, so long as the king continued to maintain the tiny intricate mechanism inside the Winterscar Jewel.

Over his head, the bronze giant swung his hammer and the
twelve o'clock bell gave a resounding peal. Jarred closed the leaded-glass window and latched it, then turned back toward the homely light and warmth of the philosopher's laboratory.

“My dear Francis,” he said, taking a seat by the brick fireplace, “I hardly know whether you will credit any of this, but I had the most amazing adventure today.”

Doctor Purcell was at his workbench, making some small adjustments to one of his mechanical toys: a little silver canary with ruby eyes, which had a habit of falling over on its side if wound up too tightly. When the king spoke, the old man immediately put this task aside, and his eyes became suddenly keen behind the gold-rimmed spectacles.

“I did wonder, sir, when you first came in, why you looked so ill. But your color has returned in the last half hour. Perhaps you feel strong enough to explain this—adventure—whatever it was?”

“Yes, I think that I do. I think that I must.” The king flexed his long white fingers. “For I admit to being at a total loss how to explain my own actions, and I hope you will help me to make some sense of them.”

The philosopher left his workbench, took a seat on a stool opposite his former pupil, and assumed such an interested and sympathetic attitude that Jarred was encouraged to go on.

“You remember the girl that I met at the ball? The one I was so eager to find afterward? Well, I chanced to meet her today, under surprising circumstances. Though that is—comparatively speaking—nothing. It is what happened later that particularly concerns me.”