Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,33
shoves him away. He leans back on the carpet and laughs as well.
“You are right, though. Sometimes, I do scurry. Like a rat.” She grins. “But that is over. You will teach me and I will make them forget their own names. With one look.”
“One look?” Pietyr asks. “That is a bold promise.”
“But I will do it. And I will make you forget as well.” Katharine lowers her lashes.
“Forget what?”
She looks up at him.
“That I am not for you.”
When Natalia asks Katharine to accompany her to the Volroy, it can be for only one reason: to poison a prisoner. That is all she has ever gone to the palace for. She has never sat in session with the Black Council, listening to them discuss the tax on naturalist fruit or glass windows from Rolanth. Nor has she ever met with the last king-consort’s representatives from the mainland, when they come to press their interests. But that is all right, Natalia says. She will one day, when she is crowned.
“He was tried in Kenora,” Natalia says as they take the carriage toward Indrid Down and the black spires of the Volroy. “For murder. A stabbing, and a brutal one. It did not take the council long to determine his punishment.”
The coach stops momentarily on Edgemoor Street to be allowed through the side gate and onto the palace grounds. Katharine tilts her head back in the dark shadow of the fortress, but they are already too close for her to see the top of the spires. When she is crowned, she will live there, but she has never cared for the Volroy. Despite the grandeur of the twin spires, with their flying buttresses, it is too formal and too full of hard surfaces. There are more windows and light than at Greavesdrake, yet the place is still cold. So many hallways, and drafts slide through it like notes from a flute.
Katharine leans away from the coach window as the ceiling closes over their heads.
“Are Genevieve and Lucian here today?” she asks.
“Yes. Perhaps we will meet with them afterward, for lunch. I can make Genevieve sit at a separate table.”
Katharine smiles. Genevieve has still not been allowed to move back into Greavesdrake, Natalia preferring to keep the house quiet. With luck, she will not be allowed to return until after Beltane is over.
The coach stops, and they disembark and enter the building. People passing in the halls nod respectfully at the pair, buttoned up in their stark wool coats and topped with warm black hats. Katharine is careful to keep her sleeves tugged down, to hide Genevieve’s bandage and the last of the scabbing blisters. They have almost healed now, much faster than she expected. Thanks to Pietyr, she is healthier and stronger. Most of the scabs have flaked off and left fresh pink skin behind. None will scar.
On the stairs that lead to the holding cells below, Katharine pauses. Deep places have always made her uncomfortable, and the holding cells have a distinct and unpleasant odor. They smell of cold and dirty ice. Whatever wind fails to escape the Volroy through its many upstairs windows falls down into the cells to rot.
“Is one murder his only crime?” Katharine asks as they tread carefully down the stone steps. The holding cells are usually reserved for prisoners of special importance. Like those who have committed crimes against the queen.
“Perhaps he could have been dealt with in Kenora after the trial,” Natalia admits. “But I thought you could use the extra practice.”
At the bottom, the cold-ice smell gives way to the cells’ true scent: human filth and sweat and fear. It is made more pungent by the close quarters and by the heat thrown off the many torches.
Natalia sloughs her coat, and one of the guards holds her hand out to receive it before they duck through the low doorway. Another guard unlocks the last large metal door, shoving it aside so hard that the heavy steel bounces against the track.
Of the many cells in the lower level, only one is occupied. The prisoner is backed into the far corner, with his knees drawn up to his chest. He seems dirty, and tired, and not much more than a boy.
Katharine grips the bars. He has been convicted. Of a murder. But scared as he looks now, she cannot imagine him committing one.
“Who did he kill?” she asks Natalia.
“Another boy. Only a few years older than himself.”