While Beauty Slept (42 page)

“Rose’s room was intended to be a nursery,” Millicent said. Her skin was sallow and her red-rimmed eyes watery; whatever remnants of past beauty her face had once carried had long since vanished. “Wasn’t it clever of my father to build that hidden staircase, so a mother could check on her child when she pleased?”

“It was quite a surprise when she knocked!” Rose exclaimed. “Mother told me Aunt Millicent was too ill to receive visitors, but clearly that’s not the case. She has been showing me all sorts of wondrous things.”

Smiling at me, eyes gleaming, Millicent waved one hand toward the spinning wheel. “Can you believe that Rose has never seen one?”

Sick at how easily Millicent had gained Rose’s trust, I tried to suppress my rising panic.

“Guards!” I called out.

Rose stared at me, uncomprehending. Two men appeared in the doorway behind me, waiting for instructions. But what could I say? How could I explain that this seemingly harmless domestic scene terrified me?

“Why should an old woman not pass her days in useful labor?” Millicent asked with exaggerated innocence. “These guards made no objection when I asked a maid to bring me this wheel.”

Of course not. They were too young to remember Millicent’s hateful words at Rose’s baptism. They had not seen the towering bonfire that lit up the sky that night.

“Isn’t it the most curious thing?” Rose exclaimed, reaching out to feel the curved wood.

I leapt forward, shouting, “Don’t touch it!”—but my sudden exclamation threw off her balance, and she slipped. Her hand flew forward, toward the wheel, and I saw blood burst from her fingertip as it collided with the sharp, pointed spindle. She pulled back with a whimper, and Millicent opened her arms to welcome her in.

Driven by a fear so visceral it banished all thought, I screamed and ran forward. I pushed Millicent away from Rose, and she fell back upon the bed. Rose leapt up, calling out my name, but I shut her out. My hands, moving as if by their own accord, gripped Millicent’s bony upper arms to hold her in check.

“Is this how you would treat a poor old woman,” she whined, “still grieving her sister’s death? What a sad tale Rose recounted! Is it true the name of dear Flora’s long-lost love was on her lips as she died?”

Anger surged through me at the sight of Millicent’s triumphant face. I had told Rose the story of Flora’s death in confidence, yet she had been quick enough to share it with this old crone. A woman who had driven her sister to the edge of madness.

“Flora told me all,” I spat out, my voice rising with ever-increasing hysteria. “How you seduced the man she loved and drove him to his death. You could not have him for yourself, so you destroyed both of them. An innocent man and your own sister!”

“Elise!”

Rose tugged at my arm, trying to pull me away. I was dimly aware of the people gathering outside the door, drawn by the commotion, witnessing my madness. But I did not care. All that mattered was that I keep Rose safe.

“Go upstairs!” I ordered. “Now!”

Rose slunk off with a resentful pout. I abruptly dropped my grasp on Millicent’s arms and watched as she slid in a jumble of limbs onto the floor before me.

“You are never to see Rose again!” I shouted. “Never!”

Millicent shot me a grimace that mixed pain and exultation. Her mouth moved, and I braced myself for a barrage of curses. Instead she laughed, a horrible taunt that echoed around me in that enclosed space. A sound that reminded me why she had once been called a witch.

I ordered one of the guards to keep watch over Millicent from inside the room and the other to fetch a mason to wall over the entrance to the hidden staircase. They looked at each other, unsure.

“Consult with the king if you wish!” I exclaimed. “Only do not delay! Hurry!”

Once it was clear that my demands would be heeded, I rushed upstairs to Rose’s room. I nearly crashed into her at the top of the passage, where she had been perched, eavesdropping.

“Elise?” she demanded, wavering between anger and concern.

I grabbed Rose’s hand and frantically scoured it for signs that the prick had allowed poison to enter her body. I found nothing. Her skin was as clear and smooth as ever, a single red dot the only evidence of what had transpired downstairs.

“You must never allow that woman into your presence again,” I said firmly.

“Why not? She’s old and sick. I felt sorry for her, left to rot alone.”

“She does not deserve your kindness.”

“Because she and my father quarreled years ago?” Rose scoffed. “Surely enough time has passed for them to put things to rights.”

God help me, I came close to shaking her. How dare she speak of the break between Millicent and her father as a trivial disagreement! Then I realized:
She does not know.
I had thought Millicent’s return to the castle would prompt her parents to recount the events of her baptism. Yet Rose remained coddled and ignorant, so oblivious to danger that she had willingly entered Millicent’s room. What might have happened if I had not come along?

“Millicent was banished for cursing your family, shortly after you were born,” I said quietly. “She wished for your death.”

Seeing Rose’s bewildered face, I feared I had been too blunt. One who grows up knowing only love could never understand such hatred.

“Why?” she asked.

Much as I wanted to help her, there were some stories better left untold. “Millicent thought your mother should heed her words over those of your father.” It was hardly a satisfying explanation, but true enough. “She is a cruel, vindictive woman. And more dangerous than you know.”

“Does she wish me dead still?” Rose’s voice trembled.

It would be a kindness to quell her fears. Yet the truth would keep her safer.

“I do not know. I would not be surprised if she did. Your mother has chosen to show Millicent mercy, but I will not. Stay away from her, far away. I will have the entrance to this staircase bricked over, to keep you safe.”

Rose nodded slowly.

“I doubt she will trouble you again,” I offered as reassurance. “From the looks of her, she’s not long for this world.”

I remembered hearing those same words long ago, when the king brought news of Millicent’s escape to Brithnia. It was said she had gone there to die, yet she lived on. Would she linger here as well, plotting a destruction we could not imagine?

The king would have to be informed of Millicent’s intrusion, but I hoped to keep the news from Queen Lenore, whose mind was greatly troubled in those days over the fate of the war’s wounded soldiers. While families of good standing had dispatched carriages to fetch their injured fathers and husbands, those of humble birth were sent to the stables, where they clutched their bloodstained bandages and groaned in agony. By the time the last stragglers arrived, close to a hundred men lay head to foot along the floor, almost covering the straw beneath them from view. A few servants were ordered to bring hot soup and tend to wounds as best they could, but otherwise the injured were left to suffer alone.

Over the king’s objections, Queen Lenore had insisted on visiting the makeshift sickroom. The soldiers took great heart from the sight of her walking among them, asking after each man’s family and offering words of cheer. She summoned Mr. Gungen and conferred with him on measures to improve the men’s comfort: straw-filled pallets, hot water, clean blankets. From then on she requested daily reports of their progress and wrote personal letters of condolence to the families of the dead, a task that took up more time with each passing day.

“So many lost,” she lamented. “I thought our care would hasten their recovery. Yet they die, one after another.”

I could not summon suitably reassuring words, for I, too, had felt the same dejection. That very morning, hearing a commotion from the back courtyard, I had peered out from my room and seen the bodies of those who had died in the night being carried out from the stables, rigid statues wrapped in white linen. I counted twelve in all, loaded onto carts and pulled in a solemn procession through the courtyard. These dead farmers, tradesmen, and servants would be denied the ceremony granted Dorian; they would join their fellow fighters in a common grave, laid to rest with a few rushed prayers from the castle priest. As they passed, I saw groomsmen leading a pair of the king’s stallions into the building. With such numbers dying, there would be space enough soon for the royal horses to resume their places.

The grim news from the stables was not spoken of openly, but I heard the whispers from servants and courtiers alike. More men died than recovered. The stench inside had become unbearable, and maids were refusing to touch the men’s now-festering wounds. A few even balked at delivering their food until Mrs. Tewkes threatened to have them dismissed.

Even then I did not suspect what was to come. I did not see the suffering soldiers firsthand or think their fates in any way entwined with mine. There was no grand premonition of doom on the day I lingered in a Lower Hall storeroom, considering rolls of fabric for Rose’s new dresses. Merely a gentle tug at my sleeve from a young maid.

“Excuse me, madam?”

I was still occasionally taken aback when servants treated me as a mistress rather than as one of their own. I turned to see a thin, pinch-faced girl who introduced herself as Liya.

“Mrs. Tewkes charged me with seeing to Lady Millicent’s meals,” she said. “Since yesterday she has refused to eat, and her room smells something awful. I think she’s soiled her bedsheets, but she won’t have me change them.”

So Millicent’s time had come at last. Here was a death I would not mourn.

“Speak to Mrs. Tewkes,” I said dismissively. “She will tell you what to do.”

The maid nodded. “I would not have troubled you, only she asked for Princess Rose by name. She said the time had come to make her final farewells.”

The old witch was making trouble to the last. “She is not to see the princess under any circumstances,” I said sternly. “Ignore her pleas.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As I sorted through the bundles of cloth, fingering each piece to gauge its quality, I could not rid myself of the suspicion that Millicent planned some further deception. Was she using illness as a ruse to draw Rose to her bedside? I would not be at peace until I saw for myself what state she was in. I left the Lower Hall and took the main staircase to the North Tower, my steps echoing across the marble expanse. How many times had I followed this same route to Flora’s room in happier days! Then I had hurried ahead in eager anticipation; now each pace was weighted with dread. The two guards at Millicent’s door nodded and unlocked the latch at my request.

The large windows, which gave the North Tower rooms their expansive character, had been covered with dark curtains that shut out all light. Without a lamp it was difficult to see more than an arm’s length before me. I could make out the shape of Millicent’s bed, with a chamber pot on the floor beside it. What lay on top, unmoving, was unclear. I could be staring at a person, but it could just as well have been a jumble of linens. A nauseating stench assaulted me, inescapable even when I breathed through my mouth to spare my nose. Anyone who grows up on a farm cannot be dainty when it comes to earthy aromas, and I was never the sort to wave a perfumed handkerchief before my face every time I entered a stable. The smell of excrement mixed with blood was not enough to weaken me. There was something else, an underlying, tangy, bitterness.

The scent of decay.

Had anything less than Rose’s life been at stake, I would have fled. Slowly, I made my way toward the bed, forcing each step, until the lump on the mattress revealed itself to be a human figure. The ridges of legs were visible underneath a thin blanket; skeletal hands clutched at the stained fabric. She lay on her back, her profile motionless, until I stood by her side. Her face turned, each movement an agony. As her features were gradually revealed, I found myself staring at a monster.

Millicent’s weathered skin had been conquered by pus-filled sores that disfigured her once fine features, and sweat matted her white hair flat against her head. Her cheekbones and eye sockets protruded ghoulishly, showing the shape of the skull beneath, and her lips were pulled back in a grimace. Each breath in and out was labored, choked by the blood that trickled from her mouth. Her eyes, fixed upon me, were red and burning, a stare that held nothing but hatred.

She laughed, the taunt of a victor who has won a hard-fought battle. For Millicent saw from my face that I knew what disease had befallen her. She had taken her revenge on the king at last, bringing devastation to his very doorstep. She rejoiced in her suffering, knowing that her death would be the death of us all.

I had entered the room brimming with righteous anger, yet her cackle shattered my resolve. I turned and ran, desperate to distance myself from the creature she had become, my thoughts whirling. I had to find the king. I had to tell him what I had seen. I remembered the soldiers, dying despite Queen Lenore’s concern for their care. I saw my mother’s face, cruelly disfigured, in her final moments. My mind battled against these visions, the progression of logic leading me to one conclusion while I hoped desperately to be proved wrong.

When I arrived at the Council Chamber, I found only Sir Walthur and one of the court scribes inside. If Sir Walthur noted the frantic edge to my voice when I asked after the king, he did not acknowledge it, telling me to look in the queen’s rooms before turning back to his papers. Sir Walthur had always been diligent in his duties, but now he rarely left the Council Chamber other than to take his meals. I thought his frequent absences from our family apartments a clear sign that he preferred not to share my company. Had I been wiser in the ways of grief, I would have understood that Sir Walthur was avoiding not me but memories of his dead son.

I found the king and queen seated near the windows of her sitting room. I could not remember the last time I had seen them together thus, engrossed in private conversation. With the weight of war thrown off, the king had regained a measure of health, and his face had lost the haunted look it carried on his return from battle. Though I could not hear his words, they had coaxed a smile from Queen Lenore, one that widened when she caught sight of me. The happiness of her welcome almost broke my heart.