The Queen's Poisoner (Kingfountain, #1)(11)

He stared at her and nodded mutely.

She hastily walked over to another table and then brought over a bowl with some flour and other ingredients already inside. She cracked an egg with one hand and emptied the yolk into the bowl. She then began kneading the mixture with her strong fingers. Owen felt she wanted to say more, so he waited for her to speak.

She glanced around the kitchen again, making sure no one else was nearby. “My husband and I walk the grounds often,” she said softly, almost in a whisper. “He knows it best. There is a porter door that is always unlocked. Always.” She glanced around again, and when she continued, her voice was even softer. “Owen, your parents did not send you here to be killed. You have friends. Like the princess. Like me. The princess’s mother is in sanctuary at Our Lady. She has been there for the two years since her husband’s brother seized the throne. Mayhap she would help you, Owen. Do you know where the sanctuary is?”

Owen stared at her, his heart pounding fast. “We passed it . . . on the way here.”

“You did,” she said, kneading the dough as if she were trying to strangle Berwick. “If you go to that sanctuary, not even the king can make you come out. You would be safe there.” She glanced back at the crowded kitchen, her eyes darting around worriedly. “If you are a brave little boy.”

A little spark of hope lit in his chest. “I’m brave,” he whispered softly, gazing hard at her. But as he looked up at her, he saw the knifelike spire through the window again.





I am a foreigner to Ceredigion, so I found the political intrigues and bad blood to be almost incomprehensible at first. Let me summarize it thus. The ruling houses of this kingdom can be likened to members of a large family who hate each other fiercely. The grievances go back to the founding of this dynasty, nigh on three centuries ago. These family members make an art out of warring with each other. King Severn’s enemies are all in their graves, or should I say all his male enemies are. He is still estranged from the queen dowager, his brother’s wife, who continues to plot against him from the sanctuary of Our Lady. But in my assessment, her power and her once-great beauty are now waning. My bets are on the crouch-backed king. Rumor has it he fancies his niece, Princess Elyse. It’s a sordid rumor embellished by the queen dowager. Pay it no heed.



—Dominic Mancini, Espion of Our Lady of Kingfountain





CHAPTER FIVE


Ghosts





They had assigned Owen to his brother’s vacant room, and he found he could not sleep at all. Everything about it, even the smell, was strange and unsettling. He had always been very sensitive to sounds, especially unfamiliar ones, and the palace was full of sounds—creaking timbers, the tapping of boots on stone, the distant murmur of voices, the rattle of keys in locks. There was always some commotion outside his door. So Owen sat up on his small wooden pallet and pulled the curtains wide, letting the moon shine through the window. And as he sat and stared at the moon, he tried to calm the frantic beating of his heart and quell the dreadful homesickness that festered there.

That night, he made several decisions. And he made a promise to the moon.

He knew the world of adults was very different from his own. For reasons he did not comprehend, his parents had abandoned him. He had the vague sense that they’d been forced to offer up one of their children and they had chosen him.

In the dark, he wrestled with the feelings that accompanied that realization. He shed more tears, but the tears weren’t sad. They weren’t angry. They were . . . disappointed. When the tears were finally spent, he ground his teeth and dealt with the harsh truth that his parents were not going to save him. He had the intuition that if he stayed at the castle and did nothing to save himself, he would probably not survive. So he had to figure out a way to change the end of the story and not end up in the river.

Being the youngest in the family, Owen had learned some simple truths in his short life. Because he was the youngest and the smallest in Tatton Hall, the adults around him thought he was weak and could not do things for himself. They always offered to help him, which annoyed Owen and made him even more determined to prove he was capable. He hated it when his suggestions and ideas were not taken seriously, especially when one of his “little speeches” caused his parents or older siblings to laugh at him.

Owen had learned that there was a certain power in being the youngest. He was a strong-willed little boy who’d learned the power of tantrums in getting his way. He used this tactic judiciously, of course, for he was normally soft-spoken and gentle.

It also did not escape Owen’s notice that adults fawned over him, especially his sisters. He had learned that being adorable, affectionate, and quick to give hugs and smiles and little kisses earned him treats and stories and attention. By being quiet, especially at night, he could stay up longer because they would forget he was there.

Power. There was power in being able to control how others reacted to you. That reminded Owen of his favorite pastime, the one that he could spend hours and hours doing—placing little tiles in a line and then knocking them down.

He had seen one of his siblings do this once. Maybe Owen had been a baby and the falling tiles had made him giggle. It was one of his earliest memories. Soon he was the one stacking the tiles, and he learned there was an immense thrill in using one tile to topple many. As he grew older, his stacking became more and more elaborate. The lines became crooked. Sometimes he used other objects as barriers and changed the height of the structures he prepared. Sometimes he’d build towers out of his tiles and trigger them to collapse.