The Queen's Necklace (21 page)

The old man nodded and continued to look interested. But the king was caught up in his own disturbing reflections, and it was several minutes before he spoke.

“I suppose I should begin,” said Jarred, very slowly, “by telling you a little about her. She lives with her uncle and his somewhat terrifying
wife—the name is Debrûle and they claim to be distantly related to the Montbarrons.” The Montbarrons, as Jarred and Purcell both knew, were a very ancient and noble family with estates in Montcieux and Château-Rouge. “They are staying, just at this time, in one of those old Goblin mansions south of the town. You know the sort of place: as cold as ice because there are no open fires and no place to put them; what little heat there is comes up in shafts from the fires down below. All through the house, there are mirrors in old-fashioned frames, and immense sideboards full of pewter and of silver plate, so that the light of a single candle is reflected back a hundred times.”

Doctor Purcell cleared his throat. “I have been in such houses. They are often let out to wealthy tradesmen and the shabby genteel. But the girl, Your Majesty, was she able to explain what she was doing at the ball—most improperly I have to say—without an escort?”

“Yes, she did. The family is in mourning, so naturally the aunt and the uncle didn't think it proper to be seen in public. The young lady, however, was simply chafing under these restrictions—and being only sixteen or seventeen, she thought it might be an adventure to slip secretly out of the house and go to the ball on her own.

“I am under the impression,” Jarred added, his straight dark eyebrows drawing together as he pondered the point, “that she was escorted in by one of the young officers at the gate. She swept him away with her beauty, no doubt, dazzled him with her diamonds. She was a little evasive about exactly who and exactly how.” He smiled and shrugged. “As there was no harm done, I saw no reason to pursue the question further. Her presence at the ball being explained, I made a long visit. I was introduced to a number of her relations. Three young cousins came in—three young men—all of them remarkably handsome and proud. I gained an impression that one at least had formed a passionate attachment to Mademoiselle. The
other two seemed to be baiting him somehow. It was really quite amusing, the way they all strutted about, striking poses and making fine speeches—”

But then Jarred's smile faded and his brow creased. This was where his memories of the day became so fragmented, so confused.
He was walking down long echoing corridors, passing through high vaulted chambers. His mind was bewildered, his steps erratic. At last he arrived in a room where there was a long table set with monogrammed silver and faceted crystal. Spread out on the table was a selection of cold dishes—jellies, creams, chantillies, aspics—inexplicably reminding him of a funeral banquet. When somebody pulled out a chair, Jarred sat down. He lifted a silver fork to his lips, felt something cool slide over his tongue—but it came to him, as he swallowed reflexively, that something was wrong, something was strangely lacking
.

With an effort, he collected himself. “We had—some sort of meal in the dining room. It all seemed so flat, so oddly tasteless. There may have been a chilled wine, but I'm not certain. It could have been water for all I know.”

“Perhaps you were already beginning to feel ill?”

“Not in the least. Except for a headache that came much later, I was practically euphoric the whole time. And that might explain my remarkable behavior. After the meal, the men had some engagement elsewhere, and the aunt was called away too, leaving me and the girl alone in the sitting room.”

Jarred's color fluctuated as the memory brought the blood racing to his cheeks. “It couldn't have lasted for more than a quarter of an hour, and our conversation was perfectly innocent, I swear to you, I
swear
to you. Yet when the aunt returned, I had the most extraordinary impression that I had just been caught doing something wrong—something shameful. I cannot explain how it was, but the moment that terrible woman walked into the parlor, I actually felt as though she had surprised me in the midst of some perfectly indecent act.”

He rose from his chair. Signaling the scholar to remain seated, he began to pace the floor. “I found myself babbling—I don't remember what. The gist of it was that my intentions were honorable, that Mademoiselle Debrûle would take no harm from me, that I meant to do the right thing, that—” He turned back toward the older man. “Francis,” he said bleakly, “I am very much afraid I have somehow gotten myself—betrothed.”

There was a long, brittle silence.

Then the old man said: “Might there not have been some misunderstanding? You are the King of Winterscar, sir, but who is the girl? It hardly makes sense that you would ask her to marry you. It seems to me that you offered the young lady your protection only.”

Jarred gave a short, mirthless laugh. “There was no misunderstanding. Francis, do you really think I would sink so low as to make indecent proposals to a sixteen-year-old girl? Particularly with her aunt right there in the room?”

The philosopher shook his head. Through Jarred had been reared at a court that put manners over morals, he had somehow acquired a delicacy of principle which ought to preclude the seduction of anyone quite so young—yet Purcell had hoped that Madame Debrûle and her niece might believe otherwise.

“But then, Your Majesty, am I to suppose there is no drawing back, that Mademoiselle accepted your proposal right on the spot?”

“My dear old friend, of course she accepted me! I will admit she was so flustered by my offer, it seemed for a moment she might actually refuse, but the aunt made very certain that she
did
accept me. Ys gave me her hand very prettily, said she would strive to be the most conformable wife imaginable—for a moment, I was actually giddy with joy—until I suddenly remembered how little I knew her, and that I didn't want to marry her at all.”

There was another long silence, during which the only sounds in the laboratory were the ticking of the clocks, the gentle whirr of
machinery in the room up above. Jarred circled the floor once, twice, a third time.

“I wonder, Your Majesty,” the old man ventured at last, “if there might not have been some sort of trickery involved. You did say, did you not, there was something wrong with the food?”

Jarred laughed incredulously. “My dear Francis, I should have
tasted
poison, and since when did poison ever cause a man to make a complete fool of himself?”

“I was thinking, sir, of drugs or love potions. You are right, of course, when you say that you ought to have detected something. Nevertheless—”

“Nevertheless,” the king interrupted him, “there was something very bizarre about my own behavior, long before we sat down to eat.” And he described to the philosopher the puzzling series of events which had led him to the decaying mansion in the first place.

Purcell briefly considered the notion that the servants might have been bribed. But the coachman was Alonzo Perys, the brother of Luke's valet. His people had been serving Jarred's people for generations, and the two footmen also came of families that had been serving the Walburgs, the Sackvilles, and the Guilians practically forever.

“Perhaps, after all, we are making much out of little, out of events that only
seemed
to gain meaning by what followed after.” The doctor clicked his teeth together in a way that he had when he was displeased with himself. “But supposing, then, that the entire situation came about by chance—might it not be possible to buy the girl off?”

The king gave the philosopher a reproachful look. “Unworthy, Francis. That is a suggestion I might have expected from my Uncle Hugo Sackville.”

Purcell blushed. The suggestion might be distressingly crúde, yet there
were
times when a practical man—But the king was an honorable
man, not a pragmatic one; if he was repulsed by the suggestion, there was no more to be said about it.

So he tried again. “You say there is a cousin, young and good-looking. One assumes that he and the girl are often in each other's company. Might it not be possible—”

“—that some previous understanding exists between them? No, I doubt it. And even if there were, it would make no difference.”

There was a jumble of images inside Jarred's brain. He struggled to make sense of them. Then came a moment of clarity, and he was briefly back at the crumbling mansion south of the town:
The girl was speaking. “This is Zmaj, Your Majesty!” A hot-eyed youth in a black velvet coat and an immense white neckcloth was standing with his arms folded, a scornful smile curling his lips
.

As the memory faded, the king spread his hands in a hopeless gesture. “After I made such a fool of myself, the whole family miraculously reappeared, their engagement elsewhere apparently forgotten. The boy—Zmaj—was clearly attentive to her every look, her smallest gesture, but if I read his manner correctly, he would sooner cut out my liver and fry it, than stand by tamely and watch me break her heart.”

“Dear me,” said Purcell, with a half smile and a shake of his head. “He sounds quite formidable. Fully as bad as the terrible aunt.”

“That would be impossible.” Jarred continued to move around the room in the same restless manner. “You will understand what I mean when you finally meet her—as I suppose you must, if I marry her niece.”

The philosopher straightened his glasses, racked his brain for another solution. “Well then, I wonder if it might be possible to convince the young lady she would be far happier, far better off in all ways, if she changed her mind and refused your flattering offer?”

Jarred stopped by the fireplace, picked up the heavy brass poker, stirred up the dying coals until the sparks flew. “How happier? How
better off? I hope I'm a modest man—but I
am
the King of Winterscar.”

“Precisely,” said Purcell, folding his hands together, tapping them thoughtfully against his chin. “And your wife will be the Queen of Winterscar, and expected to preside over one of the most elegant and traditional courts in the entire world. A somewhat daunting proposition, if I may say so, for a young and impulsive girl.”

A gleam of humor came into his pale green eyes. “Invite her to visit you here at the palace. Not officially as your prospective bride—you must tell her that nothing of the sort is possible while you are still in half-mourning. Invite her here, and put her into the hands of your Master of Ceremonies. Tell him of your secret engagement, but tell him, also, that you think of reviving some of the more fantastic old rituals of your father and grandfather's day, that he is to instruct and make her letter perfect before the wedding. If I am not mistaken, he will drill her mercilessly: the rhymed words of welcome she must use in greeting a foreign ambassador—the depth of the reverence due an aging grand-duchess. There are a dozen old volumes in gilded leather gathering dust in the Archives, simply crammed with that sort of detail, and I am convinced that Lord Wittlesbeck knows them all by heart.”

The king listened to all this with a faint, dubious smile. “But if I do as you suggest, people will talk. Everyone will believe I intend to marry her.”

“Let them talk,” said the philosopher. “Talk of that sort will do the young lady no harm. Meanwhile, she should have ample opportunity to form an attachment to the handsome, fire-eating cousin.”

Jarred put down the poker and abandoned the fireplace. “Well, it is a clever plan and it might actually work. Providing I can get Mademoiselle alone afterward, away from the influence of the overwhelming aunt. But if it doesn't work?”

“Then we will simply think of something else.”

Jarred continued to pace for another five minutes. There was something else on his mind, something that brought a sick, hollow feeling to the pit of his stomach, but he did not know exactly how to broach the subject. At last he came back to the chair and sat down again, facing the old man.

“All this aside, I feel a certain concern about my own behavior. This strange obsession with the girl, after a single meeting. And now I have actually seen her again, I admit to being attracted, but I'm not in love with her. I can't help wondering if my actions today were entirely—rational.”

He gave the philosopher a pleading glance, brought out the fear that had haunted him for so many months. “Do you think, Francis, that I might be losing my mind?”

To Jarred's vast relief, a faint smile twitched at the corners of the old man's mouth. “Did you really believe that you would never again have these feelings for a woman? Considering how long it has been—how long I assume it has been since you last had a woman in your bed—believe me, Your Majesty, when it comes to the stirrings of the flesh, sometimes a brief spell of madness is entirely healthy.”

Jarred leaned back in his chair. He gave a short laugh, half embarrassment, half self-disgust. “You think that is all it was? I can't begin to tell you how much I still feel Zelene's loss, yet for all that I do sometimes experience—stirrings, as you say. But I never expected to marry again so soon, or even to consider taking a mistress.”

He gave his dark head a quick, involuntary shake. “A woman in my bed occasionally, I don't think Zelene, if she knew, would deny me that much, though up until now I have denied myself—but anything more than that? I could not. I don't believe that I should. Not when I loved her so well.”

“Sir, you have explained far better than I could your own behavior,” said Purcell soothingly. “Your relative inexperience in these matters—having
been married so young, having been joined in a union of such superior felicity—a sense that you were somehow betraying your late queen, the girl's youth and apparent innocence—all these things contributed to the impression that you were behaving badly. You reacted accordingly, as a man of honor would.”