Seize the Crown Read online

  Well, Millard is that cake. He is most beautiful on the outside, tall, broad shouldered, dark haired and dark eyed. But on the inside, he is rotten. He is maggoty.

  I feel quite clever thinking of that by myself.

  And then I feel stupid again, because I remember that I have got myself locked in a room, when after all the horrible things that happened today, I was one of the lucky ones. I was safe, I still had my head, but now I have got myself locked up.

  The guard didn’t even look my way when the little maid came in – that was something. I had been worrying that he would see me and kill me without a word when he realised that Addyson was gone. But he didn’t even look at me.

  Being alone is no good for me, I start thinking terrible things.

  I will have a cold and lonely night and then the guard will look at me tomorrow. He will call for Millard, who will be furious. He won’t even just kill me quickly. No, because I was so clever, and let Addyson escape, he will want to know where she is. I’ve heard about torture, and I can’t hold out from him, if he puts a rat anywhere near me, or tries to stretch me on a, who even knows what it’s called, I’ll just tell him.

  And then what good is my good idea then?

  When I am dead.

  7

  EVERLEIGH LISTENS TO Addyson’s breathing, steady and deep, and then Della’s, not quite so deep, but steady.

  She is ready. She cannot wait any longer. She does not want to sleep while Millard is King. She wants him dead.

  It is late enough that she is sure the feast will be over, and her brother in bed. If she has mistimed it, she will wait. What else can she do?

  Her servant clothes are not as thick as her own, but she puts Della’s cloak over hers, so that she will be warm enough. She slips two vials of the sleeping draught in her pocket, but keeps the knife in her hand.

  She may run into trouble on the way to the castle, and she has to be able to defend herself; nothing can stop this.

  Kissing Addyson softly on her forehead, and whispering a thank you to Della, she slips out in to the night.

  It’s a clear night, with no clouds, the stars bright, lighting up the Realm. She walks quickly, and quietly, with her head down and the knife ready.

  The closer she gets, the faster she goes, until she is running. She forces herself to slow to a walk again. She needs to be quiet and careful, not loud and careless.

  As she walks, she whispers the names of the dead, the people Millard has killed. “Macsen, Halfreda, Archer. Macsen, Halfreda, Archer.”

  All the death is for nothing until she has the crown on her head or at least off his.

  The castle looms ahead of her, and tears prick her eyes, she wasn’t expecting that, but of course this has always been her home, a safe and happy place, full of people who love her and care for her, look after her. Now it seems like a hard place, an unforgiving place where bad things happen. She looks over at the tower, sending Lanorie a silent message, I’m on my way.

  It seems quiet and so she is sure the feast is over. She slips through the courtyard, cloak low on her face, ready to duck into the shadows if she needs to. She knows every twist and turn of the inside and the outside of the castle, and there are plenty of places to tuck herself away if anyone comes, but it is silent. She is sure Millard is exhausted after his busy day and that he’s sleeping. She’s sure the guards are all happy to see the end of the day as well and maybe off their game a little bit; not paying attention.

  She heads to the kitchen first, she wants to catch one of the little maids. She needs just a little bit of help to deliver the sleeping draughts to the two, hopefully just two, guards on his door.

  She hunkers down, next to a wall and watches. There’s light coming from the kitchen and she’s sure Cook is busy clearing up after the feast. It takes a while but her patience is rewarded; one of the little maids comes out carrying two ale jugs. She comes to stand near Everleigh and starts pouring the contents away. Everleigh doesn’t want to scare her too much, so she slips the dagger into the folds of Della’s cloak and moves quietly into her sight, “Hey.”

  The little maid jumps but only a tiny bit.

  “Princess.” She drops into a curtsey, and Everleigh smiles at her.

  “Thank you. Can you help me please? And not tell anyone?”

  The little maid nods; she has looked after Everleigh more than a hundred times and would do anything for her.

  Everleigh closes her eyes in relief. “I don’t even know your name.” Suddenly Everleigh feels guilty, so many little maids have looked after her, they had seemed almost interchangeable to her. How awful.

  “Molly.”

  “Well, Molly, I can never thank you enough, but when I am Queen, I will try.”

  Molly smiles. “I would do anything to serve you, no matter what.”

  “Can you fetch me two cups of wine?”

  Molly nods and takes the jugs back to the kitchen.

  She quickly comes back out. “Cook was in the store cupboard. She didn’t see me.”

  “Thank you.” Everleigh slips the vials from her pockets and empties one into each cup.

  “Can you take them to the guards outside the King’s door? With some food, maybe? Say that Cook doesn’t want the food to go to waste?”

  Little Molly looks at the cups, warily, but nods straightaway.

  “It won’t kill them, only send them to sleep. So I can talk to my brother.”

  Molly nods again, looking happier. She leaves the wine with Everleigh and slips back to the kitchen. When she comes out, she’s holding a tray with a selection of little cakes and some cheeses.

  Everleigh puts the wine on the tray and Molly heads towards the castle. “From Cook.” Everleigh just wants to remind her. “So it doesn’t go to waste.”

  Molly turns back and nods.

  Everleigh hunkers down with her back against the wall, waiting.

  Cook throws out some scraps, and another little maid scurries off towards the castle. Watching them Everleigh feels sad. It’s her birthday – the worst day of her life – people are dead, but life goes on for others. Nothing has changed for Cook. She will cook for one King or another, or a Queen or anyone who pays her. The little maid would scurry around whether it was Cook giving the orders or someone else.

  Everleigh’s life is on pause until she is crowned Queen, the pain of death a physical sharpness inside her chest, an actual weight on her shoulders. Everyone else is carrying on regardless but she cannot.

  She decides to sneak inside the castle, make her way to Millard’s rooms and put her plan into action; she cannot wait any longer.

  She hears footsteps and ducks behind a curtain. She holds her breath as the person goes past, and then sneaks a look. One of the pages, probably heading to the kitchen. She waits for a moment then starts slowly and stealthily along the corridor again.

  Millard’s rooms are not far from her own and a little bit of her wants to visit them, slip back into the past, pretend this day never started.

  It cannot be, and so she keeps going to Millard’s rooms.

  She stands around the corner. And listens. She cannot hear anyone and usually the guards would be chatting, and laughing.

  Taking a deep breath, she risks a look around the corner at Millard’s door. The guards are there, slumped on the floor, an empty tray next to them and the two cups of sleeping draught laced wine, laying on the floor, empty.

  Everleigh smiles.

  This.

  This is what she has been waiting for since Millard slashed his sword against Archer’s innocent body.

  Ginata

  AND THIS DAY IS DONE. I have never been so happy to see the back of a day, the deepening of the dark, and the stars peering through the black above with a soft and reassuring glow; some things remain the same.

  I stand in the doorway of my new rooms and give a sigh a small sigh of contentment. This is the only good thing to have come out of this mess.

  When Millard first had a maid show m
e my new rooms, I felt uneasy. A King had died in these rooms.

  But my superstitious nature quickly gave way.

  The rooms are beautiful. Three interlocking rooms. All my own. Each one at least three times larger than my entire two-room cottage.

  I allow myself a little bit of satisfaction as I survey them now: my rooms. Millard has done a wonderful job of making them up for me, all signs of his father gone.

  This first room is a receiving room. I have no idea what that even means, but it’s a little like a front room, only huge and grand, and sumptuous. There are three windows along the side, so the room will be flooded with daylight come the morning. Now the drapes are closed, thick drapes, made with better quality fabric than any of my clothes; silver in colour and shimmery. In front of each window is a seat. Each seat is covered in fabric and adorned with cushions. There are three free standing chairs, plump and cushioned, and two sofas, that could fit three people sitting side by side.

  There are rugs on the floor and hangings on the wall. In my whole life, I would never have lived somewhere so wonderful, were it not for the death of my good friend Halfreda. And though I know it was her plan for me to take over her role here, and that she was at the end of her life regardless of Millard’s sword, I do feel sad and guilty.

  I sit in one of my plump chairs, feet on a footstool, a blanket behind me to drape over my lap should I feel a chill, and I wonder at the change in my circumstances.

  Have I made a deal with the devil?

  Is that what this is?

  I stand up and wander through to my second room, a work room. Shelf after shelf of root, plant, petal, potion, lotion, bottles, jars, vials in every size. The smell is wonderful and smothering at the same time, filling my head and making it ache.

  On a table, next to some chairs, is a tottering pile of Halfreda’s work books, her ‘spell’ books, her recipes for this and that. In one of them is the list of ingredients and the steps to make a death draught.

  What if I killed Millard myself?

  I dismiss that thought with a shake of my head. Despite what Macsen did with the draught Halfreda and I made, I cannot bear even the thought of doing the same thing. Poison is the coward’s way out. Maybe what I am doing is the same. Pretending to serve when I don’t, but I know I will sleep soundly tonight, regardless.

  And in a beautiful bed!

  I laugh aloud at my wickedness, but by the gods, these rooms are a delight.

  This, I head to the third room, is my private room, a bed and a bath and some chairs, my things from home, for me to place where I choose. My clothes and some new ones as well.

  I have my own maid, she has other duties, and I can dress myself at my age, but she will ready me a bath and bring me food if I don’t choose to eat in the great hall. I will have fires lit for me and food brought to me, even in the dead of night, if I choose.

  I have choices now.

  I have never had much of a choice. I could barter a potion for a chicken rather than a piece of lamb if I preferred. I could bathe in the river in the morning and sweep the floors in the afternoon, or if the fancy took me do it the other way around.

  But now I have some sway. I have a say in the world. I have someone to wait on me.

  Oh, how different Everleigh’s life is to my own, and this is only a tiny taste of what she has always had.

  I pull back the covers on my bed, a bed that would fit five people, should the need arise, and the fabric is as soft as I imagine a cloud to be, and there is a hot brick just sitting on the sheets, wrapped in silk, warming my bed, but not getting it dirty.

  After living through today, and then Millard’s request for a coronation just for himself, and the feast, which had him grinning, laughing, smiling, joking, drinking, singing. I deserve this.

  I have a jug of ale and one of wine on the table beside my bed, should I be thirsty in the night, a plate of food, bread, cheese, cakes, in case I am peckish, a fire roaring and a heavy feeling in my body.

  This is payment for all that I have done.

  Given the death draught to Macsen, which he used to kill the King.

  Stood by while Millard killed his brother and Halfreda.

  Offered to crown him when no one else could.

  Watched him kill Archer.

  Watched him lock Addyson away in the tower.

  Watched him drive Everleigh away from her home, her crown, her birth right with threats.

  This is my payment.

  And for tonight I am too tired to do anything but enjoy it.

  8

  EVERLEIGH STEPS BETWEEN the two guards, their swords slack at their sides, their mouths just as slack, and wet with dribble. She cannot help but smile. Give even the most hardened guards some food and wine and their defences drop to zero.

  Sleeping like babies, snoring like fools.

  The door to Millard’s room isn’t locked, it doesn’t need to be with two burly guards stood outside. She opens it with the slightest of clicks and closes it softly behind her.

  His receiving room is empty, though the candles are still lit, and she quickly moves through it. There is no guard outside the door to his bedroom and she knows he sleeps alone.

  He had always had a page on a pallet at the bottom of his bed, but several weeks ago, he decided he needed one place where he had peace. It would be his downfall now.

  She puts her ear to the door and listens, he could be awake, he could still have company in there.

  She hears nothing.

  How long can she stay here wondering? She has to make a choice.

  She closes her eyes. Pictures her father, her other murderous brother, Halfreda and finally Archer. His shock of red hair, his handsome face. She remembers the prophecy, Halfreda’s teacher who brought it to show her. When she made the river rise. When she saved the deer. All the things that helped her to believe that she could be Queen, that she could live, after her whole life long she had prepared herself to die on her seventeenth birthday, sacrificed as all Kingmakers are and were before her.

  And yet here she is, alive.

  Ready.

  Ready to kill.

  She opens the door.

  Millard’s bed is straight ahead of her, she can see the shape of him under the covers, the small glow of a candle lighting him up, making him a target.

  She closes the door with the softest of clicks, and then moves towards him, stands next to him.

  Oh, he’s so handsome this brother of hers. Asleep, he looks like a painting or a statue, perfectly formed with an artist’s hand. Every feature pleasing to the eye, every part of him so lovely. He looks like a King; handsome and strong. And he can behave like a King, kind and fair...when he’s not killing everyone.

  She wipes at the tear slowly slipping down her cheeks. And the next one and the next one. Her crying is silent, she cannot risk waking him up, but she cannot stop either.

  All the sadness and pain, hurt and upset, the loneliness, the fear, it all mingles into searing hot tears that she is sure must be branding her face as they fall.

  She has the knife back in her hand before she realises it and she’s leaning closer to him, wanting to reach out and touch his lovely face before she ends his life.

  She doesn’t.

  Just holds the dagger above him, moving towards his neck.

  Inching closer until the cold, sharp point is against the warm, white skin of his neck. Ready and willing and able to kill her brother. Bring an end to this most evil of days.

  “Do it, little sister.”

  She freezes, the point against his skin but completely still. Halted.

  In the worst way.

  “What?” Her voice is shaky, thin, not strong and bold and Queen like. She thought he was asleep; his breathing hasn’t changed. Has he been awake the whole time?

  “Do it. Kill me. Push the blade all the way in until your hand is bloody.”

  “I can.”

  “You can. But the second my dead body is found – which may be in th
e morning, as I’m assuming my guards are no longer guarding – my men have been told to go to the tower and kill Addyson. If I die, she dies. It’s so deliciously simple, Everleigh.”

  Everleigh snatches the dagger away from his skin, failure and frustration filling her up, disappointment an actual taste in her mouth.

  “Not if I go straight to the tower, after I kill you.”

  “You could try, but there’s a guard on the way in and a guard outside her door. If the guard outside sees trouble coming, he knows to open the door, without hesitation, and kill Addyson. I had to be sure, Everleigh. I have to live.”

  She cannot think of a single thing to say.

  “Sorry, sister, you just can’t get a break today, can you?”

  Everleigh is silent, her mouth tight, her skin itching with impotent fury.

  She cannot do it. Even though Addyson is safe, Lanorie is not, and she cannot repay her love and friendship, the way she rescued Addyson, with having her killed. She cannot do it.

  And so, her hands are tied again.

  She cannot kill him now without having Lanorie killed.

  She has failed again.

  The knowledge makes her knees buckle, sick come up in her mouth. She swallows it, disgusted at the bitter taste.

  “And as I am such a good brother, and a good King, I’m going to give you a minute’s head start before I raise the alarm, but should one of my men, or one of my dogs, find you, they will kill you. They have been ordered by their King to show no mercy, so run fast Everleigh.”

  “I hate you.” Her voice is cold and hard and she wishes things were different, that he wasn’t just one step ahead of her. She wishes he was dead.

  “And, by the way...”

  “What?”

  “Happy birthday, sis!”

  She turns away from him, the knife heavy in her hand, pure hatred etched on her face, and runs from the room.

  She has no doubt that he will carry out his threats, if she is found here tonight, in the castle or the castle grounds, she will die.