Page 1 of Hemlock & Silver
CHAPTER 1
I had just taken poison when the king arrived to inform me that he had murdered his wife.
The poison was a distillate of chime-adder venom, which burned my sinuses when I took it off my wrist the way some people take snuff. The king was a tired man of medium height, with sandy hair and deep grooves worn into the sides of his face. I hadn’t recognized him at first when he stepped through the door of the stillroom. Well, why would I? The king was someone that I had seen far off, at the head of a long table or perched on a throne. Without context, he was simply a well-dressed man who had come in without even knocking.
Still, hehadlooked naggingly familiar, and I thought perhaps he was one of my father’s friends, so I simply said, “Wait a moment, please,” and turned back to stripping rosemary leaves off thin wooden stems. (I always process rosemary after snorting adder venom. The fragrance of the rosemary helps to clear out the awful burnt smell of the venom.)
Then the little voice in my head whispered,One moment please, Your Majesty,and recognition crashed over me like cold water.
I spun back toward the man in the doorway. He wasn’t standing in profile, so I couldn’t see if his face was the same one that was stamped on coins, but Saints help me, he was wearing a circlet, a thin little silver thing, and surely no one would wear that except royalty. Which meant he really was the king after all, except that he was standing in my workroom, where he had no business being. And I had just ordered him to wait.
I panicked and tried to curtsy, but when I clutched my skirts,I dropped the rosemary, and the leaves went spilling down over my skirt and clung to the fabric, sticky with sap.
“Your Majesty,” I croaked. My mouth was so dry that I half expected to hear my tongue rasp against the roof of my mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize… That is, I didn’t expect…” Could I ask him to turn sideways so that I could check his profile? No, probably not.
He did not look angry. He smiled faintly while I brushed futilely at my skirt. “Mistress Anja?” he asked.
I nodded. That was my name, although I won’t swear that I wouldn’t have nodded no matter what he’d said.
“You have doubtless heard that I killed my wife,” the widowed king said. “It’s true. I did.”
The words made no sense to me. They might have been a mouse’s squeak or a beetle’s click. I stared at the king with my sinuses full of venom and my mind full of nothing at all.
Why is he here?Father was part of a council of leading merchants who sometimes advised the king on economic matters, but he always went to the king, not the other way around.Am I supposed to entertain him until Father returns?
No, that was absurd, my father wasn’t due back for nearly a week. And this didn’t seem like a man who would be entertained by a treatise on the dangerous properties of powdered lead. Regardless, the housekeeper should have settled him in the best room and brought him wine and come to fetch me, not brought the king here as if I were his equal. And the staff knew that—at least theoretically, I couldn’t imagine they had any more practical experience with kings than I did—so either he had snuck in or he had demanded to see me, and neither scenario made any sense at all.
Perhaps he wants an antidote or some prevention against poison?That was the only thing that might make sense, but why would he come himself instead of sending a messenger? Kings had people to run errands for them. It was one of the few reasons I could imagine wanting to be king.
“Well?” he said.
I blinked at him. “Well what, Your Majesty?”
He made a quick, impatient gesture. “The rumors that I killed my wife. I told you, they’re true.”
It is very hard to respond to a statement like that. Even if I had been at my best, even if hehadn’tbeen a king, what could you say? Besides, I hadn’t heard any such thing. I knew that the queen had died a few months ago, that was all. Gossip found its way into my workroom only slightly more often than kings.
If I were the person that I should be, I would have been angry. It wasn’t right that someone could just announce that he was a murderer and expect everyone to smile and nod along, simply because he was the king. A good and decent person would have been filled with righteous outrage. But my heart was starting to race from the venom and my mind was cloudy, and it was simply all so baffling that I heard myself say, “Ah?” as if he had just said something mildly interesting at a party, and part of my brain said,That should be “Ah, Your Majesty?”and the rest ran in little gibbering circles inside my skull, wondering if I was about to be executed for sheer foolishness. I had never heard that the king was prone to executions, but until a moment ago, I had also never heard that he had killed his wife.
He didn’t look as if he was about to have me executed. He looked tired and worn, and the deep lines carved on either side of his mouth did not appear on the coins. He didn’t fidget, but he shifted his weight, anxious in the way of men who are not used to being anxious and aren’t very good at it. “I wanted to get that out of the way,” he said. “In case you could not see past it.”
He’s expecting me to see past amurder? How? And why would he care? He could have just not said anything about it, and I would have been just as confused and awkward as I am now.
“Ah,” I said again, searching his face in hopes that everything would become clear. It didn’t.
Surely a murderer would look different? Not so tired?At thirty-five,I was more than old enough to know that evil could present a fair face, but I had never heard that it got tired. Quite the opposite, really. Evil is relentlessly energetic.
For that matter,didhe actually kill her? Or did she die in childbirth or of a broken heart and now he blames himself?That seemed much more plausible. Gossip was one thing, but the king murdering the queen was the sort of scandal that would have rocked the entire city.
Nevertheless, he had brought it up, and clearly that was the topic of conversation. “How did she die, Your Majesty?” I asked politely.
If the question surprised him, the king gave no sign. “I ran her through with my sword.”
Well. So much for that theory.I clenched sticky fingers in the folds of my gown, feeling the first stirrings of outrage.And he expects me to see past it? Does he think I’ll just overlook murdering his wife? Some sins are unforgivable, even for kings!
“She was cutting our daughter’s heart out,” he added.
… or not.
