Exile of the Crown Read online

  Merden swallowed. “I…you’re wrong.”

  “Am I? I don’t think so. But if you persist in being a fool, I think we’re both going to find out. Maybe you could pass your decision along to your fellows.” Zara stood up, running her fingers just once against the table that felt so wonderfully familiar. “Good day, Mister Merden. See you at knitting circle, Florence.”

  Zara and Amelia walked back across the fields in silence. When they reached the outskirts of town, Amelia said, “You’re terrifying.”

  “I am not,” Zara said, welcoming the chill breeze against her suddenly warm cheeks.

  “No, you are. I’ve never heard anyone speak the way you did. He’s going to change his mind.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I don’t think you’ve ever heard Rose tear into someone. She’s almost as terrifying as you are. He’s certain sure going to change his mind.”

  Zara didn’t reply. She’d never thought of herself as terrifying. Forceful, yes; convincing, yes. But terrifying? She thought back over the conversation, if you could call it that, with Merden. She’d found his weakness and exploited it, just as she had a hundred times before, and she’d done it because others needed her to. Just as she had a hundred times before. “I’m not Rose,” she said.

  “You’re not,” Amelia said. She stopped on the path, making Zara stop as well. “Rose is…she’s a good woman, mostly, but she takes pleasure in tearing people apart and she’s not always careful as to whether or not they deserve it. You’re more like…what’s that knife Dr. Green uses?”

  “A scalpel.”

  “That’s it. You cut where it’s needed and you strike clean. And everyone can hear the truth in what you say.”

  Now Zara’s cheeks were flaming. “I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or not,” she said.

  Amelia shrugged, smiling. “I think it is. It just makes me wonder why you’re a weaver and not…I don’t know…ruling a County.”

  Zara realized she was holding her breath and let it out, slowly. “I think you have to be born to that.”

  “I don’t know. Lord Harstow, Baron Steepridge I mean, he was appointed to the Barony only a few years ago. So King Jeffrey might ride into Longbourne one day and carry you off to join his Council!” Amelia laughed.

  “I hope King Jeffrey doesn’t think of that,” Zara said.

  ***

  Chicken soup was about the only food Zara knew how to make—well, it was the only food she never ruined. It was fortunate Maida Handly served inexpensive meals at the tavern, because Zara would starve to death otherwise, metaphorically speaking. She fished out the chicken and shredded the meat from the bones, then stirred the meat back into the pot. It smelled heavenly. She hoped Sabrina could eat some of it. The woman looked like a bird herself, the bones of her face sharp and her arms and legs thin and brittle as a couple of matchsticks. Zara ladled the rich broth into a couple of bowls and carried them upstairs.

  The upper story had three rooms laid out in a line, opening off a short hallway. Zara had firmly refused to take the largest room, the middle one that was Sabrina’s, and probably wouldn’t have even if Sabrina had been completely well and left Longbourne entirely. “Suppertime,” she said as she entered the room. Sabrina was sitting up in a rocking chair padded with cushions and smiled at Zara.

  “It smells delicious,” she said.

  “That’s kind of you to say,” Zara said. She knew full well that Sabrina’s senses of taste and smell had vanished weeks before, but it didn’t hurt anyone for her to keep up the pretense. “Let me set these down.”

  “You don’t have to eat with me.”

  “I get bored all by myself.” That was another lie, but a more plausible one. Zara hadn’t minded being alone for many years now. “Besides, I wanted to tell you the knitting circle gossip.”

  “Does that mean you’ve learned to knit?”

  “A little. I’m not good at patterns, but I can do a fine scarf. Besides, you know knitting circle is more about talk than knitting.”

  “So you’ve finally learned that, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sabrina laid her spoon down with a gentle tink. “I mean,” she said, “you’ve finally let yourself make a place here.”

  Zara blinked. “But I—well, of course.”

  “Not ‘of course.’ You held yourself aloof for a long time. I think you’re not used to having friends, which is a shame in someone as young as you are. What happened to you, that you’re so bent on being alone?”

  It was so unexpected it left Zara groping for something to say. Nothing came to mind but the truth. “I never stay long in one place. Leaving people behind…it’s painful. Easier not to make friends at all.”

  Sabrina nodded. “I can see that. But happen you’re not thinking about it straight.”

  “I’ve had a long time to think about it,” Zara said.

  “I know it seems that way to you. Young people always feel the weight of the years they don’t have.” Sabrina took Zara’s hand. Her dry, loose skin felt like butterfly wings, soft and fragile. “Agatha, we all of us eventually leave folks behind, or they leave us. What kind of life would it be if we let that fact keep us from cherishing those relationships? We live, and we love, and we mourn, and we rejoice. Take comfort in those friendships, Agatha. Even if you plan on leaving Longbourne someday. Even if it’s someday soon.”

  Zara clasped Sabrina’s hand lightly. “I miss my husband,” she said. “We didn’t have long together, and when he died, I thought—what was the point of having him at all, if it was just going to end?”

  “The point was having him at all,” Sabrina said. “You willing to give up those memories just to give up the pain?”

  Vividly she remembered the Wintersmeet morning when she’d kissed Hank for the first time, how wonderfully sweet it had been to feel his body against hers. “No,” she said.

  “Then that’s that,” Sabrina said. “It’s why we make those relationships. We’re not made to be alone, any of us, and I hope you remember that.”

  “I think I will.” Zara set down her bowl of soup, which had grown cold. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you for caring for me. I meant to leave Longbourne, you know, but this has been my home for fifty years, and…it was selfish of me, letting you give me a home these last weeks.”

  “It’s no trouble. You’re no less my friend than they are.”

  “That’s true.” Sabrina handed her bowl to Zara. She’d barely touched her food, which made Zara’s heart ache. “You know, you bear a remarkable resemblance to Zara North,” she said.

  Zara dropped the bowl. Soup and pottery shards flew everywhere. “Did I startle you?” Sabrina asked.

  “I slipped,” Zara said, and fled downstairs for a towel. She set the remaining bowl in the sink and sat at the table with her head in her hands. It had been so long that she’d stopped worrying about people recognizing her, for the most part, though she still wouldn’t take the risk of living near Aurilien. And now this old woman had reached into the past and pulled out a memory that could mean disaster. Zara took a deep breath. No. Sabrina Merriwether was dying, and she didn’t know the truth of her words, and she wasn’t in a position to tell anyone even if she wanted to.

  Zara came slowly up the stairs with the towel. “What a mess. Now your room’s going to smell like chicken,” she said.

  “I don’t mind.” She’d scooted her chair a few inches from the puddle. Zara gingerly picked up the pieces of the bowl and stacked them together, then mopped up the spill. Sabrina shifted her weight, then said, “Zara?”

  “What?” Zara said, then realized what she’d done. The shards of the bowl slipped from her nerveless hand once again. “I mean—”

  “You are her,” Sabrina said. “Zara North. I was at the Queen’s coronation, and I’ve never forgotten her face. Your face. It’s impossible, and yet you looked so guilty I knew it had to be true. Not dead, and looking little older than you did at you
r coronation..”

  “You can’t tell anyone,” Zara said.

  “Who would I tell?” Sabrina put her hand on Zara’s head. “That would be quite a secret to keep, for all these years.”

  “It could mean the downfall of the royal family, if it were known.”

  “I see.” Sabrina stroked Zara’s hair. “Will you tell me? Tell me what happened to you?”

  “To satisfy your curiosity?”

  “To ease your burden. Am I right that you haven’t told a soul the truth in…it must be nearly forty years now?”

  Zara looked up at Sabrina. She hadn’t lit the lamp, and the sunset glow had dwindled and turned pale blue as the moonlight took its place. “You’re dying,” she said.

  “And therefore safe.”

  “Yes.” She moved to sit on the bed. “It started,” she said, “when I broke my leg.”

  The whole story took less time to tell than she’d imagined, even when she included Hank and being tracked down by Jeffrey and the years of moving from place to place to avoid discovery. “It was probably a bad idea to buy your business,” she said, “if I intended to move again in a few years. That’s not enough time to really build it up. I wonder if I didn’t secretly want an excuse to settle down.”

  “Happen that’s true,” Sabrina said. “And Barony Steepridge is off the beaten path a bit.”

  “I just didn’t count on making friends so easily. Or getting involved in local politics so quickly.”

  “Mister Pierpont hasn’t left Longbourne yet.”

  “No, and it worries me. He’s got some other plan and I wish I knew what it was.”

  “You’ll find out. And then you’ll destroy it.”

  “I hope that faith in me is warranted.”

  “In the woman who brought the Scholia to its knees? I think Mister Pierpont is going to regret coming to Longbourne with all his blackened heart.”

  Zara laughed. “You know what’s true? It feels good. I’ve spent so much time hiding who I am that having an excuse to fight for something feels…wonderful. Natural.”

  “And Longbourne thanks you for it.” Sabrina shook her head. “Will you help me into bed? I think I can sleep for a while.”

  “Of course.” Zara saw her friend settled, then opened the window a crack; Sabrina loved the chilly night air. “Sleep well.”

  She went downstairs and tidied up the kitchen and the great room, thought about sitting in the drawing room and practicing her knitting, decided against it, and went to make herself some tea instead. If this were a play, Sabrina would die tonight, just in time to have received Zara’s confidences, but she probably had another week or so. Zara prayed her passing would be peaceful. It did feel good, sharing that burden with someone else, but it would have to be the last time. Her secret could still bring down the North family, and she couldn’t bear that.

  She sat at the table and sipped her tea, looking through the kitchen window at the yard. She really ought to replace that outhouse. Maybe Ger Fuller, owner of the general store, would accept trade for lumber. She could get some of the husbands of the knitting circle women to do the labor. And they likely wouldn’t want paying, because that’s what neighbors were for. What friends did for each other. It was a warm feeling. Sabrina was right; however transitory friendships were, they were worth cherishing. Hank, she thought, I don’t regret a moment of our life together, however much I still miss you. And if she didn’t regret him, there was no sense regretting the new friendships she was making.

  She rinsed her empty cup, put it in the drying rack, and climbed the stairs to her room. Pierpont was definitely planning something, but she’d worry about that in the morning. Tonight, she’d sleep more peacefully than she had in years.

  ***

  “I hope this means you hold no grudge against me,” Pierpont said, settling himself in the seat across from Zara. Outside the windows of the tavern, fat snowflakes fell. Eleanor Richardson had told her it was nothing, just a flurry, but it was hard not to picture snow filling the street and the fields and finally the pass to the lowlands. Zara settled herself more comfortably and smiled at Pierpont, a nice, friendly smile. Time enough for nasty smiles if this conversation went the way she thought it might.

  “You’re a businessman,” she said. “Just like I am. We’re both trying to make a living.”

  “Exactly,” Pierpont said. “Tea?” He picked up the steaming pot that had been sitting on the table when she arrived, which annoyed her; how presumptuous of him to assume she was willing to share a companionable drink after how they’d clashed over the last few weeks. She shrugged and nodded, and he poured out a dark, rich stream into her cup.

  “Thanks,” she said, adding a bit of cream and stirring. “But you didn’t ask me here just to show off your tea-pouring abilities.”

  “I asked you here to see if we could come to some sort of agreement,” he said. “We shouldn’t be at odds like this. I realize now that I didn’t take into account how passionate your weavers are about their livelihoods. I apologize.”

  His expression was once again that of an indulgent parent, pretending to give in to a recalcitrant child, and she smiled sweetly back at him. “Why, that’s nice of you to say,” she said. “There’s been misunderstandings all around, certain sure.” She took a long drink of her tea, which was an unfamiliar blend and surprisingly good with a tang of unexpected sweetness.

  “I’m glad you appreciate that. Now, if I may, I’d like to lay out the position we find ourselves in?”

  “Go ahead, Mister Pierpont.”

  Pierpont set down his cup in its saucer with a tink. “Most of the weavers have made it clear they’re not interested in working for me. And that’s just fine. On the other hand, enough of the sheep farmers have agreed to sell to me that I have wool enough to be going on with, and some of your weavers—and I think you’ll agree this is just the way business works—have found working for me to be in their best interests. My factory will start production, Mistress Weaver, that’s just a fact. But I don’t believe we have to be bad neighbors. I really do want what’s best for Longbourne.”

  Zara raised one eyebrow, but decided against challenging him. Instead, she said, “And I suppose you have a plan for making that happen.”

  “I was thinking how much easier it would be for all of us if you weavers were to formalize your arrangement. Form a cooperative, so to speak. Then the cooperative and the factory could write up an agreement stating where the boundaries are, so there’s no…poaching, you could say. You have boundaries, and I have boundaries, and we’re each able to profit without hurting one another. What do you think?”

  “I think the weavers of Longbourne are independent enough that they don’t want to give over any control of their businesses to anyone, even someone with their best interests at heart.” Zara took another drink, enjoying the aroma. “Getting them to agree to your proposal would be difficult.”

  Pierpont smiled, and this time it was genuine. “Oh, Mistress Weaver, you don’t expect me to believe that you couldn’t get them to see reason? You have a gift for showing people truth.”

  “I wish that were true.” He had something else in mind, some other plan, but Zara couldn’t for the life of her figure out what. Forcing the weavers into a cooperative—and since she didn’t believe in it, it would require force—would weaken them by introducing the need for all of them to agree on its decisions, but Pierpont was right, it would give them a stronger position to defend themselves. “We’ll consider it,” she said, deciding to play for more time. “It’s an interesting suggestion.”

  “Well, don’t take too long, because once the snows set in and the pass closes, we’ll all be stuck here in Longbourne all winter.” Pierpont said.

  “And that would be a shame,” Zara said blandly, and pushed her chair back to go.

  “You don’t have to go,” Pierpont said. “I was hoping you’d have dinner with me.”

  Zara suppressed a shudder. “No, thank you, Mister Pierpont,�
� she said. “I appreciate the offer.”

  He stood and bowed politely as she left, pulling her cloak low over her face. The idea of having a civil meal with that weasel made her stomach churn. She blinked away a few snowflakes and trudged back along the street toward her home.

  The factory loomed, dark and sinister, over the town square, its windows leaden sheets in the gray light. Zara walked up and peered inside. It was too dark for her to see much, but there was the impression of angular, bony arms with too many elbows, lined up in a row extending past the limits of her vision. She traced a circle in the patch of mist left by her breath, then scrubbed it out with a fold of her cloak and moved on. Her stomach rumbled painfully again. Dinner with Pierpont was a bad idea, but dinner by herself, or with Sabrina if she was awake, seemed an excellent one.

  She held the back door carefully to keep it from slamming—she really needed to have that looked at—then called out, “Sabrina?” The house was silent long enough to frighten her, then she heard her name called, muffled and distant. Zara ascended the stairs and said, “I was going to heat something up for us, would you like—”

  Stabbing pain tore at her stomach, making her gasp and drop to one knee. A second pain, worse than the first, made her vision go gray, and when it passed she discovered she was sprawled on the steps, her hand clinging to the stair rail. “Sabrina,” she gasped, then groaned as a third pain struck. Stupid—Sabrina could barely help herself. Gritting her teeth against the agony in her stomach, she crawled up the stairs, then collapsed on the landing, curled in on herself. It felt like knives and hot pokers all at once. Something—