SHE HAD TOwince every time she stood up straight, for the pain in her belly would not relent. It had gotten better during the summer and had diminished to almost nothing for several months, but now, with the end of God's Year 842 only a couple of months away and with preparations being made for the great end-of-year festival - a social gathering that Jilseponie as queen was expected to arrange - the pains had returned tenfold.
She kept a stoic face and attended to her duties as best she could. Every once in a while, though, usually when one of the noblemen or noblewomen was giving her a particularly difficult time, the pain would outweigh her good sense and Jilseponie would let her anger show. On one occasion, she had caught a rather unremarkable courtesan giggling at her as she had walked past, and had overheard the woman whispering to a friend that the Queen had found a lover. A nasty cramp had struck Jilseponie at just that moment, and, her thoughts blurred by sudden pain, she had promptly strode over to the noblewoman and slapped her across the face.
As she now sat in her private bedroom, not the one she shared with King Danube, thinking about that incident, Jilseponie could not keep a smile off her face. Though she had undoubtedly acted improperly - she could have had the woman arrested, but to strike a subject was highly frowned upon -she still had to admit to herself that she had enjoyed it! The courtesan had looked her straight in the eye and had threatened her. "If only you were not the Queen."
"Be glad that I am," Jilseponie had answered, not backing down, her pain lost in the wall of her anger. "Else I would beat you unconscious and your ugly friend as well." As she had finished, she had stared hard at the other courtesan, the only witness to the incident.
Of course there had been repercussions from her actions, with rumors running rampant and even talk of the courtesan's demanding that King Danube exact a public apology from Queen Jilseponie for her uncouth behavior. If the injured woman insisted on that, it would put Danube in an awkward spot indeed.
Still, Jilseponie believed the slap had been worth it. She could not count the number of times she had held back her urge to leap into a fight with many of the hypocritical, altogether wretched noblewomen - the small circle about Constance Pemblebury most of all - and even with some of the more arrogant and foolish noblemen.
Alas, the responsibilities of her station would not allow such a thing.
So she tried to turn the other way, to focus her attention and her energies on more positive and productive endeavors. Most of the nobles spent their idle time at play - hunting and gaming, feasting and courting -but to Jilseponie, enjoyment was found in following the course of Avelyn and Elbryan. She tried hard to remain the fighter, the warrior for the cause of those most in need, though the tactics had surely changed, from battling powries and goblins with the sword to debating minor lords and battling unfair traditions and inefficient bureaucracy. Jilseponie wielded words now instead of a sword, and used the power of her station against injustice.
It was a tedious and frustrating process. The traditions and the people who maintained them were deeply entrenched; and Jilseponie, despite Danube's support and obvious love, was still considered too much an outsider for her to easily enact any positive change.
And now this, the renewed cramps, following her every step, radiating out from her burning abdomen to cause aches in every part of her body, and blurring the focus of her mind. Before, she had resisted going after the pain with her soul stone, partly because it had never been this intense but also because she simply did not want to focus on that particular aspect of her body. Markwart's attack on her that day outside of Palmaris had taken more from her than her unborn child. The demon spirit within Markwart had assaulted the very core of Jilseponie's womanhood, had invaded her, had, in the very essence of the word, raped her. For her to examine her womb now, even on a mission of healing, would force her to face those feelings of violation all over again.
But now she had no choice. The pain was too intense. And even aside from her fear that Markwart's attack might have caused a life-threatening problem, the pain was interfering with her station, with her duties and joys in life, as a queen and as a wife.
She took up her soul stone and, thinking of Elbryan, she started her dark journey. Rather than fleeing from the painful memories, she embraced them in a positive light, remembering her unborn child, enjoying again the feelings of life growing within her.
She passed into her empty womb and recognized the scarring; but she saw something more frightening, more alive and malicious. It appeared to her as thousands of tiny demons, hungry and chewing at her - little brown biting creatures.
Rattled, Jilseponie fought hard to regain her mental balance, then went at the creatures as she had once battled the rosy plague. For a long time she slapped at them with her healing powers, destroying them with her touch.
And then she felt relief, both physical and emotional. For unlike the plague, these demons did not seem to multiply faster than she could destroy them. It took her a long, long time, but when she came out of her trance, she was exhausted but feeling better than she had in more than a year.
She lay back on her bed and put her hands up over her head, stretching to her limit - and feeling no pain, no cramping in her belly. No physical turmoil at all, though a million questions rushed through her head. Had she won, truly and forever? Had she defeated this disease or infection or whatever it was? And what did that mean for her and Danube? Could she now bear the King an heir?
And more importantly, did she want to?
No, Jilseponie refused to think about that so soon. The implications of her healing her womb - though she didn't believe that was what she had truly done - staggered her. She knew that no child of hers would be warmly welcomed by Danube's snobbish court.
But, no, Jilseponie told herself. She hadn't fixed the wounds Markwart had imposed upon her; they were too old and too deep to be repaired by the gemstone magic. No, she had cured herself of this newest infection that was probably caused, she supposed, by those previous wounds.
Whatever the result, whatever the implications, the Queen of Honce-the- Bear was certainly feeling physically better now, and so she was enthusiastic when one of her handmaidens appeared, bearing a tray of food. Jilseponie sat at a small table at the side of her bed as the handmaiden uncovered the various plates, and for the first time in months, she looked at the food eagerly, intending to thoroughly enjoy this fine meal.
The handmaiden left her and she took up her fork and knife and started to cut . . .
And stopped, stunned, blinking repeatedly, sure that her eyes must be tricking her. Perhaps it was the recent intimate interaction that brought recognition, perhaps some trace connection remaining between her and the hematite . . . But whatever the reason, she saw them.
The little demons scowled at her from her food. She could feel their hunger.
Shaking, Jilseponie pushed back her chair and retrieved her soul stone. She hesitated - what if she found out that the food itself was poison to her? What if the wounds the demon had inflicted upon her had somehow morphed into a physical aversion to nutrition? How would she live? How . . .
Jilseponie threw aside those fears and dove into the soul stone, using it to examine her food on a different and deeper level. What she found both relieved her and heightened her fear. No, it was not the food itself that was poison to her, but rather, something that was in her food, something that had been sprinkled upon her food!
She shoved the plate away, sending it crashing to the floor, then staggered to her bed and sat down hard, trying to sort through the information and digest the astounding implications. Was someone poisoning her?
"A seasoning, perhaps, that simply does not mix with my humours," the Queen said aloud, but she knew better, knew that those hungry little demons were no seasoning but were a deliberately placed poison.
She dressed quickly and started searching for the source. The handmaiden, obviously not the perpetrator, willingly led her to the great castle kitchens and the chef, who was assigned to personally prepare the meals for both King and Queen.
The chef's smile melted away when Jilseponie dismissed the rest of the kitchen staff, thus warning him that something was amiss - something, his expression revealed, that he understood all too well. Under her wilting gaze and blunt questions, the man cracked easily, delivering to the Queen a source that truly surprised and terrified Jilseponie.
"I cannot dismiss your complicity as I have Angeline's," Jilseponie stated definitively, referring to the handmaiden.
"I - I did not know, my Queen," the chef stammered.
"You knew," Jilseponie countered. "It was in your eyes from the moment I asked the rest of the staff to leave. You knew."
"Mercy, my Queen!" the man wailed, thinking himself doomed. He fell to the floor and prostrated himself pitifully. "I could not refuse him! I am but a poor cook, a man of no influence, a man - "
"Get up," Jilseponie commanded, and she waited for him to stand before continuing, using those moments to sort through her anger. A part of her wanted to lash out at him, and she wondered if it was her duty to turn him over to the King's Guard for trial and punishment. But another part of Jilseponie could truly sympathize with the awkward position this man had found himself in, obviously caught between two opposing powers that could easily obliterate him. And his choice, against Jilseponie and toward the unknown perpetrator, was also understandable, given Jilseponie's standing among the courtiers and, by association, among the staff.
"You would kill me?" she asked the chef; and the way he blanched, the look of true horror that came over him, revealed to her his honest shock.
"You put poison in my food," Jilseponie said plainly, almost mocking that expression.
"Poison?" the man gasped. "But all the ladies . . . I mean . . ."
Now it was Jilseponie wearing the surprised expression. She took him aside, asked him to sit, and helped him to calm down. Then she bade him to explain everything to her.
He went on to tell her the truth of her poison, that it was a herb commonly used by the courtesans to prevent pregnancy. Then he told her where the courtesans got the herb - from the man who had come to him some time ago, explaining that he should put the herb in the Queen's food, as he did in the food delivered to the courtesans who lived in the castle.
Courtesans that numbered only a couple, including Constance Pemblebury.
Jilseponie found herself in quite a quandary, then. "How will I ever trust you?" she asked him. "And you, above all, must be in my trust."
"Please do not kill me," the man said quietly, trembling and fighting to hold back his sobs, his gaze lowered. "I will run away, far away. You will never see - "
"No," Jilseponie interrupted; and the man looked up at her, deathly afraid. "No, you will not resign nor will anyone learn of this error." She stared at him hard but with compassion. "This error in judgment that you will not repeat."
The chef's expression shifted to one of surprise and skepticism, as if he did not understand or believe what he was hearing.
"You are, in many ways, the protector of the King and Queen of Honce- the-Bear," she said, her tone regal and commanding. "As great a guardian of the health of Danube and Jilseponie as is Duke Kalas, who leads the Allheart Brigade. You must view your position in this light. You must understand and accept the responsibilities of our trust. Our food passes through your hands. You prepare, you sample, you defend the Crown."
"And I failed."
"You did, as has every man and every woman in all the world at one time or another," Jilseponie replied, and she took the man's chin in her hand and forced him to look her in the eye. "You have heard of my heroics in the northland," she said with a self-deprecating chuckle.
"Against the demon and against the plague, yes, m'lady," the chef replied.
"One day I must tell you of my many failures," Jilseponie said, and she chuckled again.
The man could not have appeared more stunned, and it took him a long time to muster the courage to ask, "What are you to do with me?"
"I will watch over you carefully in the days ahead," she replied without hesitation. "I will, for the sake of the safety of my husband, confirm that which I believe to be the truth of your heart. I trust you'll not fail again."
The chef's jaw drooped open and he sat there, staring at her for many minutes. "No, m'lady," he at last answered. "I'll not fail you, and not forget what you have offered to me this day."
Jilseponie smiled at him warmly, then took her leave. She wasn't sure if she had done the right thing; she had played a hunch, a feeling, though she would follow through with her claim that she would carefully watch over the food, both hers and her husband's.
What she knew for certain, though, was that she felt good about the way she had handled the chef. She felt as if she had acted in the best spirit of Avelyn. How many criminals, after all - thieves and murderers even - had gone to the plateau at the Barbacan and entered the covenant that had saved them from the rosy plague?
And this man, Jilseponie knew in her heart, was in many ways akin to her handmaiden, used and abused by the man truly holding the power.
She would not be as generous with him.
She felt strangely comfortable as she made her way through St. Honce, heading for the room of Abbot Ohwan. That surprised Jilseponie, until she took the time to pause and consider that, in this situation, she held all the power. Jilseponie had found many adversarial situations with powerful men of the Abellican Church, often on a desperate precipice, but this time . . .
This time she knew that Abbot Ohwan had no defense, that he could not and would not oppose her demands.
She gave a slight knock at his door and pushed right in before he could even respond. He was sitting at his desk, staring up at her incredulously. He started to say something when Jilseponie forcefully slammed the door behind her and turned an imposing glare upon him. "You have been poisoning my food," she stated bluntly.
Abbot Ohwan stammered over a few words and started to rise, but he fell back to his seat and seemed as if he would simply topple to the floor.
"Deny it not," Jilseponie went on. "For I have found the substance and have spoken with the man who actually sprinkled the herbs upon my food, following your own explicit orders."
"Not poison!" Abbot Ohwan remarked, shakily climbing to his feet. "Not poison."
"Poison," said Jilseponie.
"Herbs to prevent you from becoming with child, nothing more," the abbot tried to explain. "You must understand that I had little choice."
Jilseponie's expression showed that she was far from understanding.
"You . . . you . . . you came here and upset everything!" Abbot Ohwan said boldly, going on the offensive as he quickly came around the side of his desk. "There is, or was, an established order here in Ursal, one that you do not comprehend."
"I came to Ursal at the invitation of the only person who can rightfully make such a claim that I have somehow confounded the court," Jilseponie was quick to respond, and forcefully. "Since the court is his to confound! And if my presence at Castle Ursal court somehow upsets this secluded little world that the nobles of court and the hierarchy of Church have created for themselves, then perhaps that is a good thing!"
Abbot Ohwan started patting his hands in the air, his bluster expiring in the face of the powerful woman. "Not poison," he said again.
"I know nothing of the herbs, except that the amount I was being given would have killed me soon enough," Jilseponie retorted.
"Not so!" the abbot protested. "Only enough to keep you from becoming with child. And can you blame me? Do you not understand the trauma to Church and to State if that were to happen?"
That ridiculous last statement was lost on Jilseponie as she considered his first claim. She knew it to be a lie, knew that she had been given far too much of the potent herb, but she could not deny the sincerity in the man's expression and in his tone. She figured it out pretty quickly. "And do you also give the herbs to Constance, that she might remain sterile?" Jilseponie asked.
"Of course," Abbot Ohwan answered. "Such has been the duty of the abbot of St. Honce for hundreds of years - to supply all the courtesans."
"And the queens?" asked Jilseponie. "Without their permission?"
Abbot Ohwan shook his head and stammered again. "N-never before has a queen also been within the province of St. Honce, serving as sovereign sister," he suddenly remarked.
"Nor am I within your province, Abbot Ohwan," Jilseponie said calmly and in a low and threatening tone.
"And tell me," she went on, "to whom do you deliver these herbs? To each individually?"
"They are separated into proper portions for each kitchen and all given to a courier," the abbot explained innocently. It wasn't until he heard his own words that his expression soured and he apparently caught onto Jilseponie's reasoning, that Constance and the other courtesans could easily divert some of their supply to Jilseponie's food.
Jilseponie shook her head at the man's stupidity.
"You are a liar or a fool," she said.
"Please, sovereign sister," Abbot Ohwan stammered. "My Queen."
"Resign your position," Jilseponie demanded. "Go and serve as a parson in a minor chapel far removed from Ursal and the court."
"I am the abbot of St. Honce!" Ohwan protested.
"No more!" Jilseponie shot back. "Go now, this day, else I will publicly reveal your treachery to King Danube, discrediting you and bringing upon you the shame you deserve."
"You will bring about a war between Church and State!" insisted the desperate abbot.
"The Church will abandon you," Jilseponie assured him. "You know that it will. I offer you the chance to continue your vocation and to find again the heart you have apparently lost, but it is a tentative offer, I assure you. Accept it at once and without condition, or I walk out of here to the King with a tale that will boil his blood."
Abbot Ohwan's expression shifted through many emotions, from fear to denial to anger. Finally, like an animal that has been backed into an inescapable corner, he squared his shoulders and stood tall. "Thus you play God," he said, his voice full of contempt, his face locked in a defiant glare.
Jilseponie didn't blink. "If I played human, you would now be lying in a pool of your own blood," she said calmly, and then Abbot Ohwan did shrink back and blanch.
Jilseponie was no less sure of her actions as she headed back to Castle Ursal, armed with the information she had subsequently pried from the defeated abbot. This was not a fight that she had ever wanted, and it saddened her profoundly. But neither was it a fight that she could avoid, and certainly not one that she intended to lose.
She knocked on the door of Constance Pemblebury's rooms and this time, waited for a response.
A sleepy-eyed Constance answered the door, opening it just a bit and peeking around it. A flash of anger accompanied the flash of recognition when she saw who had come calling, but she held her composure well.
"I must speak with you," Jilseponie remarked.
"Then speak."
"In private."
"Say what you must here and now or go away," said Constance, squaring her shoulders. "I've no time - "
Before she could finish, Jilseponie dropped her shoulder and shoved through the door, crossing into the room and slamming the door closed behind her.
"Queen or not," Constance yelled defiantly, "you have no right to invade my private quarters!"
"A minor transgression, I would say, when measured beside your own perceived right to invade my body," Jilseponie answered.
Constance started to respond but stopped short, caught by surprise - and caught by the stunning and true accusation. "W-what?" she stammered. "You speak nonsense."
"I have just come from Abbot Ohwan," Jilseponie said calmly. "And from the kitchens of Castle Ursal before that. I know about the herbs to prevent pregnancy, Constance, and I know as well about the exceptionally high dose you chose to add to my food."
"What evidence?" Constance started to ask, trying to stand bold and defiant.
"Was it not enough for you to keep me barren?" Jilseponie asked. "Did you have to go after my very life in addition?"
"You do not know - "
"I know," Jilseponie growled so forcefully that Constance backed away a step. "And so will King Danube unless - "
"Unless?" the woman interrupted, more eagerly than she wanted to reveal.
"Unless Constance Pemblebury takes her leave of Castle Ursal, and of Ursal altogether," Jilseponie explained. "Go away, Constance. Go far away. To Yorkey County or to Entel or all the way to Behren, if that is what best suits you. But far away."
"Impossible!" Constance shrieked.
"Your only option," Jilseponie calmly answered. "I know what you did and can prove it openly, if you force me to. I can reveal your treason to the King and the court and, worse for you, to all the folk of Ursal if need be. Is that the path you will force me to take? To destroy you utterly?"
"I cannot leave!"
"You cannot stay," Jilseponie was quick to reply. "This is no debate. I came to offer you this one chance to be gone from Ursal and from my life. I'll not suffer an assassin to live in my own house."
"Your house?" Constance roared indignantly, and she came forward, poking a finger Jilseponie's way. "Your house? You do not even belong here, peasant! Your house is in the Timberlands, in the forest with the other vulgar creatures - "
Jilseponie slapped her across the face, and she fell back, stunned.
"Be sensible and do not force my hand," Jilseponie said quietly, calmly, and powerfully. "You have betrayed me, and thus, whatever your feelings, you have committed treason against the Crown. A simple and undeniable fact. If you force me to reveal your treachery, I shall, and woe to Constance Pemblebury, and woe to her children, who would be kings."
The mention of the children seemed to steal the ire from the woman, though she stood very still, trembling, her eyes darting all about, as if looking for some escape.
"Be gone," said Jilseponie. "Be long gone from the castle and the city."
Constance trembled so violently that Jilseponie feared that she would simply fall over. "My children," Constance said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"They may remain at Castle Ursal, if that is what you desire," Jilseponie replied, "or take them with you. The choice is yours to make -have you never understood that I am no threat to Merwick and Torrence or their ascension to the throne, if that is how the fates play out?" Jilseponie shook her head and chuckled helplessly. Nor was she ever a threat to Constance, she thought. A part of her wanted to tell that to the beleaguered woman then, to try to reason with Constance and salvage . . .
Salvage what? For truly it had gone too far. There was no repairing her relationship with Constance Pemblebury, Jilseponie knew, especially given Constance's obvious feelings for King Danube. Constance's hatred of Jilseponie went deeper than any fears the woman had for her children. Constance's hatred was rooted in irrational and irreversible jealousy; and since Jilseponie could not alter King Danube's heartfelt feelings, nothing she could say or do would repair things. Nor, given the wretchedness of the woman and her cronies at court, did Jilseponie have any desire to do so. No, the only remedy here, short of an open trial for treason, was for Jilseponie to follow her original plan.
"There is nothing left for us to discuss," she said, holding her hand up to Constance to stem any forthcoming remarks. "I have given you the choices - you must do whatever you believe to be best for you, though I warn you one more time that I have all the evidence needed to convict you in open court."
She patted her open hand toward Constance as the woman started to speak, then gave her one last stare, turned, and headed for the door.
"How long?" came the shaky question behind her.
Jilseponie turned, and her heart sank at the pitiful sight that was Constance Pemblebury.
"How long do I have before I must go?" the woman asked, her voice breaking with each word.
"Tomorrow will be your last day in Castle Ursal, with one day after that to secure passage out of the city," Jilseponie replied, and she knew that Constance would have little trouble securing her passage from her many wealthy and influential friends. "And beware of how you wag your tongue concerning your unexpected departure," Jilseponie warned. "Implicate or deride me in any manner, and I will reveal my evidence and demand a trial."
"Witch," Constance muttered as the Queen turned again to leave.
Jilseponie accepted the insult and continued on her way. She felt good about her generous decision, though she understood that allowing Constance to leave would likely mean more trouble for her somewhere down the road.