The Queen's Necklace (31 page)

Though Zmaj had jumped back at the first opening of the door, though he and Ys were standing decorously at opposite ends of the hall, with a vast stretch of black-and-white floor between them by the time she reached the foot of the stairs, it took Madame but a single comprehensive glance to assess the situation.

“That will do, Zmaj,” Her dark eyes moved from one flushed and excited face to the other. “It was good of you to escort Her Highness home, but your presence here is no longer required.” And the Maglore youth, without demure, bowed to each of the ladies in turn and quietly left the house.

He was of Imperial Blood, just as Ys was herself. So why, she wondered resentfully, did he allow Madame to speak to him so?
He
was not the one who had spent his entire life under her thumb.

But they all obeyed Madame: Lord Vif, Aunt Sophie, Zmaj and Jmel, and all the other Maglore who had joined them in Tarnburgh—quite as though it were Madame Solange who was the Empress-born, instead of Ys. “
They like taking orders
,” said that intrusive voice in her mind. “
It spares them from thinking too far ahead for themselves
.”

“As for you—” It was the real Madame Solange speaking now, in her hard, impatient voice. “You may go upstairs and wait for me there. I have things to say to you, things that are not for the servants to hear or know about.”

Ys paused at the foot of the oak staircase. For a moment, she considered what it might cost her if she refused. But then she shrugged. Whatever it was that Madame had to say, there was no point in putting it off. Without a word, she turned on her heel, set one small foot on the first step, and then headed slowly up the stairs.

Y
s had taken a seat by one of the diamond-paned casement windows in her little sitting room. She had picked up a book and was leafing through the pages, when the door flew open, and in came Madame Solange in a typical rush, followed a moment later by the small plump figure of Aunt Sophie.

“No, keep your seat,” Madame said sharply, as the girl made to rise. “Remember who you are, what you are destined to become.”

Remembering exactly who she was, Ys rose defiantly to her feet. But then—finding Madame's indignant gaze too much to bear—she merely put down the book and changed her place by the window for a chair on the other side of the room.

Madame's chest heaved inside her burgundy velvet gown; her eyes burned. Like Ys, she was dressed in accordance with her new rôle; strings of pearls were twined in her rich dark hair; the long bodice of her wine-colored gown was trimmed with yards of gold galloon. “You are a very wicked and willful—” she was beginning, when Sophie interrupted her.

“Val, dear, you can't command her to remember her dignity in one breath, and then scold her like a naughty little girl in the next. And really, you know, she does it all very well. You have been with
her from the very beginning, have seen her change so gradually—I daresay you are hardly aware that she
has
changed. But I can't tell you how impressed I was when I arrived two days ago.” Sophie smiled her gentle, conciliating smile. “Impressed by what you, more than anyone, have accomplished here. She
looks
every inch the Queen of Winterscar and she has so many pretty airs and graces—”

“Unfortunately,” said Madame Solange, between her teeth, “the
King
of Winterscar does not appear to think so. Two long months ago, Sophie, he all but pledged to marry her, right here in this very room, yet still the arrangement remains a secret one. I begin to fear that he has no intention of marrying her at all.”

Madame moved about the room with her usual impatient step, and (also as usual) the room with its vaulted ceiling and high casements, the entire house with its dozens of rooms and passageways, seemed scarcely adequate to contain her energy. “This girl's failure to secure her position is all the more pitiable, because there is no other female claiming his attention.”

“But I do have a rival,” Ys protested. She struck what she thought was a demure pose, hands folded, eyes lowered, but her voice was dripping with spite. “The peerless Zelene, so perfect, so flawless, so pure—I can't begin to tell you how difficult it is measuring up to a dead woman.”

Madame regarded her with unconcealed contempt. “I
might
believe you were at some disadvantage, were you not in possession of your mother's necklace. Surely that is an advantage that no other woman, living or dead, can hope to match. Though I must say,” she added with a cruel smile, “you have been very clumsy in the way that you use it!”

Instinctively, Ys put her hand to her throat, where the double string of stones rested. Even when they were not there, when she was in her bath, or when she took them off before going to bed at night, she could still feel their ominous weight pressing against her
flesh. And she was learning to hate the necklace, which more and more seemed to her a poisonous thing, a deadly thing that it was dangerous even to use.

“Until now, you have only been able to arouse and intrigue him, to mesmerize and bedaze his mind. But that's not enough. You are attracting and repulsing him at the same time, which means that your spell remains imperfect. It wouldn't be necessary to blind him with headaches or play tricks with his memory, if your hold on him was complete.”

“Now Valentine,” said Aunt Sophie, taking one thin, nervous hand between both of hers, speaking in her most soothing voice, “she is still very young. Ys has nothing to match Chimena's experience.”

Madame suffered her touch with uncharacteristic patience—though her nostrils flared, and her free hand clenched, and opened, and closed tight again. “Experience means very little. Chimena knew how to do these things instinctively. It almost seemed that the necklace was made for her and she was made for the necklace. Ys is Chimena's daughter, and if she is not so apt for these things as Chimena was, there should still be enough of the mother in the child to teach her the proper use of the stones.”

With a sudden movement, Madame waved Sophie away and rounded on Ys with a glance of concentrated venom. “This girl knows very well there is only one way to make Jarred of Winterscar utterly her slave. She must take him into bed with her, demonstrate some of the darker pleasures the necklace can offer—no, Ys, spare me your blushes. You are not the innocent you were three months ago. At least—not if you have been doing your duty with that boy who just left, and with the others.”

Ys sat frowning down at her tiny feet, so that no one could see the burning color rise up in her face. “I have been doing—what is required—with Zmaj.”

“But not with Jmel? Not with Izek?”

“I have been doing what is required.” Ys raised her head with a flash of defiance that ignited and died before the sentence was finished. “Why should it matter which one I have chosen to father my child?”

“It matters,” said Madame. Her handsome face had grown harder with the years, the dark eyes brighter, the red lips thinner. It often seemed that her brittle control over her outsize emotions must snap at any moment, but it never had.

“You are not to single out any one of those boys. To do so would give him an inflated idea of his own importance. When you conceive, I want no one to know which one of the three is really responsible.”

Madame began to pace as she spoke. The high heels of her satin slippers made sharp little sounds as they hit the hardwood floor. “We don't want any jealous scenes enacted before the king. Which we will have, if Zmaj is encouraged to believe that he has an exclusive claim on you. You don't know these Maglore youths as I do. With all their posturing, their suicidal passion for duelling—it's a wonder our race has survived. And there will be no time to waste on placating Zmaj. You must devote yourself to entrapping King Jarred.”

Her brilliant gaze wandered again to Chimena's necklace; she lowered her husky voice almost to a whisper. “You must bewitch him—you must seduce him.”

“But I don't want to seduce Jarred,” Ys protested. “And why should I?
He
can't father my children.”

“No. But he must believe that he can. He must, when the time is right, believe that he has.”

“But not just yet. Even if I conceived tomorrow—I could easily put off marrying Jarred for another six months.” Ys left her seat, wandered across the room, and stopped before a large looking-glass in a silver frame, where she was caught and held fascinated by her own reflection.

As with all the other mirrors in the house, the surface had been painted by a Padfoot sorcerer with a spell of confusion, meant to put any Human who entered the room at a distinct disadvantage, a spell to which the Maglore were entirely immune. Again like every other mirror in the house, the frame was ancient; the old dark silver had been cast in an elaborate design of skulls and imps, hearts, and lizards. It made an interesting contrast to her own gilded prettiness.

Pinning a stray curl back into place, Ys was pleased to note that her face was still flawless: the delicate skin firm, the clean-cut bone structure only a little more prominent than it had been ten years ago. By Human standards she looked perhaps seventeen—though in fact she was more than twice that age. As with all her race, she knew that from this point on she would age more and more slowly, until the first deep lines began to appear at or about the age of two hundred. After which, if she chose to live, she would deteriorate faster and faster, and in the space of a few short decades grow so withered and haggard that even her closest friends would fail to recognize her. But many of the Maglore, unwilling to face that rapid descent into old age, chose suicide instead, and made away with themselves, discreetly and quietly, while youth and beauty still remained. Even those who could withstand a few wrinkles, a few grey hairs, rarely waited for a natural death to claim them. All but a very few poisoned themselves with salt, or else swallowed ground glass, before the process of decay was far advanced.

But I may decide that I don't want to do it
. The thought came unbidden, rendering Ys almost breathless with her own daring.
I may decide to be like the great Sophronispa, live to three hundred and die in my bed
.

It was a bold idea, not only because it defied custom, but because it involved thinking so many years ahead. Which proved that she
was
more like Madame Solange than she was like the others.
And perhaps someday I shall even surpass her
.

“And what do you suppose you would accomplish by waiting six months? There is more at stake here than whether or not Jarred imagines he has fathered your child.” As Madame spoke she crossed the room and came up behind Ys; their eyes met inside the mirror, between the imps, hearts, and skulls. For a moment, Ys froze, wondering if her governess had guessed what she was thinking.

“And once you have married him, you may have to live with him for months or even years. You'd best learn not to be so squeamish where he is concerned. I really don't know why you
should
be squeamish. Surely his appearance is not repulsive?”

“His appearance, no.” Ys came back to life with a shudder. “But you've never made love, you've never been mauled by one of these Human creatures. His hands are so hot, and his lips and tongue taste of salt; I grow dizzy and nauseated whenever he kisses me.”

Sophie interceded again. “Val, you have only succeeded in frightening poor Ys. Let us leave her alone to think things out for herself. I am sure if we give her the opportunity, she will eventually see how—needful it is that she should do exactly as you say.”

Turning away from Ys and the mirror, Madame made a wide, dismissive gesture. “I am weary of trying to reason with her. Either she will do as she is told because she knows it is right—or else I'll be forced to resort to sterner measures.”

The Grant was by far the oldest Goblin in the neighborhood. He had been dispensing his quaint old-fashioned cures from a dank basement shop on the outskirts of Tarnburgh for much, much longer than anyone could remember. The skull of a cat was nailed up over his door, and though the faded sign below read:
APOTHECARY * Pills * Potions * Powders & Unguents
, he was the only physician to whom the Padfoots and the Ouphs had access. And indeed, so vast was his knowledge, so practical his advice on every occasion, they wanted no other.

One chilly spring morning, he ushered a visitor into a dark little
room at the back of his shop—the room he reserved for his private consultations—and he bade her be seated on a high stool. She was a very young lady, very well dressed, but the Goblin was not deceived. Like all of the Grants and Wrynecks, he possessed a singularly penetrating eye. He possessed, too, information that few Men shared: he not only knew what to look for, he knew there was reason to look.

He took a seat for himself on an elaborately carved sandlewood chair. Lighting a stub of candle inside a green glass bottle, setting it down on the damp stone floor near his feet, he listened most attentively while she described her symptoms: the backache, the nausea, the dizziness.

When Ys had finished, he nodded his head wisely. “I should say, madam, that you are certainly increasing. Pray accept my congratulations. However, you may not wish to announce the fact—to the father or any other interested party—for some little time.”

“But why not?” Ys gave him an uneasy glance across the room. There was something about the place that made her skin prickle: dusty bunches of herbs hung drying from the low beamed ceiling; the air was very close and filled with complex odors.

At the same time, she felt a glow of excitement. Madame had told her the Maglore were notoriously infertile, had declared it would take a great many attempts with many different lovers before she conceived, and yet she had accomplished it in three short months.

“I am sorry to say that nine times out of ten nothing comes of this. Excuse me for being so frank, but I must suppose that like most—young ladies, you have been denied certain details regarding conception. No doubt you believe it occurs in Goblins much as it does in Men and the lower animals—but nothing could be farther from the truth!” The Goblin rubbed his hard old hands together as he spoke. “What is growing inside you now is nothing more than a vegetable
mass, highly dissimilar to a Human infant. This thing has life, it grows, but it has not yet been—animated—it has not yet quickened. That must occur at a later stage, with another insemination. If and when it does quicken, the fifteen months gestation will truly begin.”