The Gilded Crown by Marianne Gordon

Author:Marianne Gordon [Gordon, Marianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-12T12:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The knock came at night. The cat was curled up on her knees and let out a cantankerous mew as she pushed him gently aside to get out of bed. She already knew, with some odd prescience, exactly what she would find on the other side of the door.

The servant from the royal palace, the one in red who always collected her from the docks. Bion. Behind him Edrin stood rubbing her eyes, tired from her nightly rounds.

‘The Princess demands your presence,’ the servant said, holding out a letter. ‘I’ve come to fetch you.’

‘Can the Princess wait until morning?’ Hellevir muttered, although she already knew the answer.

‘No. You must come now.’ Hellevir took the letter and snapped the seal. The words she read stilled her heart, stopped her breath. There was only one sentence, with the Princess’ curling signature beneath it. It was dated midsummer, when she had first ordered Hellevir to bring her back if she were ever to die.

Time to fulfil your promise.

‘Is she …’

Hellevir glanced down and saw blood on the white cuff of Bion’s sleeve. He tugged at it when he saw her looking, pulling his jacket down to cover it. His cheek seemed swollen with the beginnings of a black eye.

‘Let me dress,’ she said, and closed the door. She stood there for a moment, holding the letter to her stomach as if to quell the nausea tugging at her insides. She took a breath and let it out slowly. Elsevir cocked his head to one side in question. ‘The Princess is dead,’ Hellevir murmured. The words didn’t seem real. They were spoken by a character in a book, an actor on a stage, not her. Her pulse hammered in her temples, loud as the beating of a drum, and she sank into a chair before she fell.

Elsevir ruffled his feathers and nervously preened his tail.

‘Will you bring her back?’

‘I have no choice,’ Hellevir replied. ‘Her threats are still real.’

‘Then you will need the pearls.’

Hellevir pulled herself together. She stood and dressed hastily, fastening her hair up with the hairpin which she now always thought of as Death’s, and pinned the Princess’ brooch to her collar.

She pulled out her bedside drawer. Inside were her herbalist’s notes and Sathir’s lessons. At the back, folded in their riddle, were the two pearls, glinting like droplets of milk. She heard again that cave creature’s cackle, dry as tinder cracking under pressure.

Elsevir alighted on her shoulder, and they both looked down at them.

‘It’s a shame,’ the raven remarked. ‘If only they could each save a soul. You could keep one for the next time the Princess is killed.’

‘That would be too easy. Together they are a single precious thing.’ Hellevir picked them up and put them in the pocket of her heavy coat, wrapping her fist around them.

The servant was waiting anxiously, tapping his foot, and led her back to the gate at a brisk trot. Edrin caught Hellevir’s elbow as she was leaving.

‘Is it serious?’ she asked.

‘It won’t be.

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