The Cup and the Crown Read online

  The Cup and the Crown

  Diane Stanley

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Peter,

  who is always there to listen

  and who says wonderful things, like,

  What if you had a ratcatcher?

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 - King Alaric the Younger

  2 - A Lonely Road

  3 - Faers-Wigan

  4 - The Workshop of William Harrows

  5 - North, by the Sea

  6 - Hue and Cry

  7 - The Trial

  8 - The Tale of King Magnus

  9 - The Great Seer

  10 - The Ratcatcher

  11 - Tobias

  12 - A Family Dinner

  13 - Jakob

  14 - Watching

  15 - A Little Outing

  16 - A Plan

  17 - An Amazing Stroke of Luck

  18 - Dusk at the Magnussons’ House

  19 - In the Tower

  20 - The Ratcatcher’s Apprentice

  21 - In the Dark

  22 - The New Magus Mästare

  23 - The Gift of King Magnus

  24 - The Tale of the Prince of Chin

  25 - An Incident in the Celestium

  26 - Hard Things

  27 - The Hall of Treasures

  28 - A Visit from the Watch

  29 - Spirit Work

  30 - The Silversmith’s Shop

  31 - The Tunnel

  32 - Wings

  33 - Rats

  34 - Messages

  35 - Escape

  36 - Skulking

  37 - The Canyon

  38 - Sigrid

  39 - Incantations

  40 - The Cup

  41 - Blood and Fire

  42 - Once Again in the Garden

  43 - Ravens

  About the Author

  Other Works

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  King Alaric the Younger

  THE GREAT HALL WAS MUCH as she remembered it: the tapestries, the massive iron candle stands, the enormous fireplace, the great gilt screen behind the dais. But the rushes were gone from the floor now, in keeping with the latest fashion. And there were sentries posted at the entrance to the royal chambers. They followed her with their eyes as she paced in restless circles, waiting. What was taking Alaric so long?

  There had never been guards in the old days, when Godfrey the Lame was king. Molly knew this for a fact. She’d once pressed her ear to that very door and listened to young Prince Alaric quarreling with his mother, unobserved by anyone but Tobias, who’d come to mend the fire. He’d been scandalized that a scullery maid should presume to eavesdrop on a queen.

  Molly smiled, remembering how intensely she’d despised them both. “Mind who you look at, wench,” Prince Alaric had said to her as he stormed out of his mother’s room. And “You aren’t fit to be here,” Tobias had added later. What she’d said didn’t bear repeating—but then she’d only been seven at the time, and inclined to say whatever popped into her head, however outrageous it might be.

  Come to think of it, that last part hadn’t changed so very much.

  She circled past the dais and was musing on the screen when the door flew open and a large, imposing man came out, thunder on his face, his boots striking the flagstones with the force of his anger. As he passed, he shot Molly a look of pure revulsion. Then he turned away, as from something loathsome, and continued with long strides down the length of that cavernous room, the stink of his fury trailing behind. She watched him, appalled, till he was long out of sight. Only when she heard her name did she look back at the door and see Alaric standing there.

  He didn’t greet her with a smile or apologize for making her wait. Indeed, he scarcely looked at her at all.

  “Come,” he said. “We’ll walk in the garden. I need a change of air.”

  He took her arm and held it close to his side. Whether he did this out of affection or was merely stiff with rage, Molly couldn’t tell. Either way, she liked it. She cast a quick glance up at his pale, narrow face, his sun-bright curls and gray eyes, and judged him as handsome as ever—despite the scowl and the crease between his brows. She sighed to herself in quiet satisfaction and leaned her head against his shoulder, just a touch.

  It was high summer, and the flower beds were bright with lilacs, roses, and lilies. Ancient trees arched over their heads, offering welcome shade as they followed their winding course, fine gravel crunching beneath their feet.

  Molly had never been there before, though she’d lived half her life at Dethemere Castle. Common servants had no business in the king’s garden, unless it was to plant, and prune, and tend that private little patch of paradise. Her place had been in the kitchen, scrubbing pots and polishing silver.

  All that had changed this past half year. And nothing about her transformation from scullion to lady had struck her quite so forcibly as this: that she walked the paths of the royal garden on the arm of the king of Westria—just the two of them, alone.

  Never mind that he was in a mood.

  “So, how do you like your new estate?” He said this distractedly, his mind on something else.

  “It’s very beautiful, my lord.”

  “I should certainly hope so. It was to have been my sister’s dower house. You’re happy there?”

  “Not especially, my lord.”

  He stopped and looked down at her, really looked for the first time that morning.

  “‘Not especially, my lord’?”

  “It’s too grand for me, Alaric. I don’t belong. And those highborn servants, brought in to attend a princess, being asked to serve the likes of me . . .”

  “You’re a lady now, by royal decree.”

  “Yes. And you could royally decree that henceforth eels shall fly and magpies shall swim in the sea. But even you have not the power to make it so. My ladies of the chamber certainly know what I am. They correct my manners at table and express amazement that I can’t do embroidery, or play the lute, or dance, or read romances. And there’s nothing for me to do all day but meet with my steward and my chamberlain to talk about things I don’t understand, and choose which gown to wear, and sit staring into the fire or out the window while my ladies drive me mad with their never-ending chatter.”

  “Merciful heavens! You’re bored as well?”

  “Unbearably.”

  She could feel the tension in his body. He held her arm in a viselike grip.

  “Any minute now you’re going to say that you’re awfully sorry, you know you’ve been shockingly rude, but it’s all because you were ill raised.”

  “I suppose that would be—”

  “Well, a plague on your upbringing! I’m sick of hearing about it. I can see you now in your dotage.” He took the high, nasal voice of an old crone, hunching his back for added effect. “Oh, I’m so sorry I insulted you, my lord, but when I was a small child—fifty years ago—I was not taught how to behave.”

  She took a deep breath. “Your Majesty,” she said, “I truly am sorry that I seem so ungrateful when you have been so generous and kind. But I spoke the truth: I don’t have the makings of a lady. You’d have done better to set me up as a shopkeeper—”

  “If you say another word, I shall bite off your head.”

  How was it, she wondered as they continued to walk in stormy silence, that she’d been so careful of what she said to the cook when she’d worked in the palace kitchens and cowered under the haughty gazes of her ladies of the chamber—yet with the king of Westria, well, she’d say just any old thing!

  “I’ll find
you some better attendants,” he muttered, “and see that they treat you with respect.”

  When she didn’t respond, he added, “You may speak now.”

  “Thank you, my lord, but you can leave them as they are. In the end I found it rather amusing to torture them.”

  “Torture them? Good God!”

  “Not with thumbscrews, never fear. I just developed a sudden fondness for exercise—taking long walks to the village or the next town over, in foul weather whenever possible. And as I cannot go out alone, it being unfitting for a lady—”

  “—they have to accompany you.”

  “Yes. Such a lot of mud this year.”

  She’d finally made him laugh. And it felt for a brief spell like the old times, before he’d become king and the burden of great responsibility had been laid on his young shoulders, along with his royal robes.

  “Alaric,” she said softly. “Tell me why I’m here.” She already knew, of course. She’d known for weeks, long before the royal messenger had arrived at Barcliffe Manor, calling her back to court. She knew because she’d seen it in a vision.

  The first time it had happened, she’d taken it for a dream. But it had been too clear, too perfect; and when she’d sat up in bed, it had stayed with her, not fading away like smoke into air as dreams always do. It had returned the following night, and every night thereafter, always exactly the same: a handsome boy of eighteen or twenty, dressed in fine clothes, holding a beautiful goblet. And though she’d never seen the cup before, she knew exactly what it was—and what it meant for her, and for the king.

  As for the boy, he was a mystery.

  “I want you to go to Austlind,” Alaric said, “to find one of your grandfather’s Loving Cups.”

  “I thought that must be it,” she said. “You were so keen to have one last winter—then not another word. I kept expecting . . . but I suppose you’ve had a lot on your mind these past months.”

  “Learning to be a king, you mean? And taking control of my country, and choosing my counselors, and fending off officious busybodies who say I’m too young to rule and I must have a regent do it for me?”

  “Yes. And I suppose that terrible man who came out of your chambers just now is one of the busy-bodies?”

  “Lord Mayhew? Oh, yes. You know what he calls me behind my back? King Alaric the Younger. Isn’t that charming?”

  “You should chop off his head.”

  “Oh, please, Molly, be serious. I’m sending him with you to Austlind, by the way, to see to your safety on the road. That’s why he was so angry. He feels the mission is beneath him.”

  “Then why send him? If he mocks you in secret, surely he cannot be trusted.”

  “I trust him to keep you safe. As for the rest, I just told him you’re going to Austlind to find a certain silver cup, which I want to send as a gift to the king of Cortova. Anything regarding the princess or the special properties of the cup—please keep that to yourself.”

  They’d reached an opening in the boxwood hedge that led to the heart of the garden. Here was a pond with a stone fish rising out of the center, standing upright on its tail, water spouting from its mouth.

  They sat on a long stone bench in the shade of a chestnut tree. The king released her arm.

  “Now, in addition to Lord Mayhew, I’m sending my valet. His name is Stephen, he’s fluent in the language of Austlind, and he has my complete trust. You may speak freely with him in all things. But do it in private.”

  She nodded.

  “You’ll need a chaperone, of course. Winifred will do, if you wish.”

  “Yes. And I want Tobias, too.”

  He scowled. “Whatever for?”

  “Have you some personal objection to Tobias?”

  His hands flew up, impatient. “Fine,” he said. “By all means, bring Tobias.”

  She waited a spell for his ruffled feathers to settle before making them rise again.

  “Alaric?” she began carefully. “May I ask you a question?”

  “I suppose that depends on what it is.”

  “I know you feel you must marry soon and get yourself an heir, as there is no one left in your family to inherit. What I don’t understand is why you must resort to enchantment in order to get yourself a bride. I would think there’d be princesses waiting in line—”

  He gripped his head with both hands as if fearing it might come off. “By all the saints in heaven, Molly—is there nothing you will not ask? God’s blood, but your impertinence takes my breath away!”

  She flushed. “I see I overstepped.” And then, because she couldn’t help it, “I thought I was your friend.”

  “Don’t,” he said, getting up from the bench and going to stand by the pond. He stayed there, not speaking, for an age and more. Then he came back and sat down beside her again.

  “It will not be an easy match to make,” he said. “When Princess Elizabetta was betrothed to my brother Edmund and came to Dethemere Castle in advance of the marriage, she was in the great hall that night, at my brother’s side—”

  “I know all that, Alaric. For heaven’s sake, I was there.”

  “Then you will understand that after witnessing the slaughter of my family, including my poor brother whom she was meant to marry—and at such close hand that she was spattered with his very blood—the princess will not look warmly on a match with another king of Westria.”

  “I agree. It’s hopeless. So why not just choose someone else?”

  “Because it must be her.”

  “Oh, come now! She stole your heart in a single day? I know she’s beautiful; I saw her myself. But you can’t have exchanged a dozen words with the lady. How do you know she’s not a shrew, or stupid, or wicked?”

  “Neither my heart nor her beauty has anything to do with it, Molly. The kingdom of Cortova controls the Southern Sea. I can’t afford to have them turn away from us and make an alliance elsewhere. And there’s been talk of a match with Prince Rupert, my cousin Reynard’s eldest son.”

  “That little runt? He can’t be more than thirteen!”

  “He’s fourteen, just two years younger than I; and where royal marriages are concerned, age doesn’t matter. If Rupert is matched with Elizabetta, it’ll be a disaster for us. Austlind is already allied to Erbano through Reynard’s marriage to Beatrice. If they combine with Cortova too, they’ll be so powerful, I fear we could not stand against them.

  “So I must have an alliance with Cortova. To achieve that, I must wed the princess. And to wed the princess I must, as you so graciously put it, resort to enchantment. Is that clear?”

  “As a mountain stream, my lord.”

  “Good. Now, you’ll be going to a crafts town called Faers-Wigan, where your grandfather worked his trade. If one of his cups is still to be had, you should find it there. But I’m a little concerned—”

  “—that I won’t be able to tell a true cup from a false one?”

  He nodded. “There are a lot of dishonest traders who’ll be eager to make a sale, and they’ll claim—”

  “I know. But they won’t fool me. I’ve been seeing the cup in my dreams this past month and more. I could describe it to you down to the finest detail.”

  The king brightened upon hearing this. He trusted her magical gift, innocent of the dreadful price she’d paid for the knowledge it brought her. He didn’t know—because she’d never told him—how profoundly she dreaded those visions, which came to her unbidden, forcing her to look on unspeakable things. And he certainly couldn’t imagine that brash, bold, tough little Molly was haunted by the murder of her grandfather, which she’d witnessed in one of those visions, and the terrible fate of her gentle mother, locked up as a madwoman in a small, dim, noisome room till she was released by death—all because they shared the same magical gift that Molly now carried.

  She gazed thoughtfully at the play of water in the pond, thinking not about the cup but the boy who held it: that face, with its straight nose and fine chin, those clear gray eyes, th
at dark, curly hair—it was like looking into a mirror. He was herself, had she been older and a boy.

  It had to mean something—that uncanny resemblance, the nightly insistence of the vision. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, just this once, it portended something good?

  Best not to count on it, though.

  2

  A Lonely Road

  THE WEATHER WAS PERFECT for a journey: the cloudless sky a brilliant blue, the warm air sweet with the smell of clover, the road shaded by ancient plane trees, which rustled in the breeze. And overhead, a pair of ravens danced together—swooping in tandem, dipping and rising, floating on currents of air. It was as if they were joined by invisible strings.

  “Look at that!” Molly said, craning her neck to watch. “See how they stay together so perfectly.”

  “They’re courting,” Stephen said. “Ravens pair for life, you know.”

  “Oh, I wish I could do that, just once!”

  “Go a-courting?” asked Winifred with a wicked smile.

  “No, you goose! Fly! I want to rise up into the clouds and float on the air.”

  “Wouldn’t we all?” Stephen said.

  They continued in silence, watching in fascination, listening to the birdsong in the meadows and trees and the soft plodding of the horses—all but Tobias, who stared down the road deep in thought.

  When he and Molly had first met, he’d been the kitchen’s donkey boy, an unkempt, scruffy, troubled child of nine who’d just lost his family to the plague. She’d been the lowest of the scullions, an unkempt, scruffy, impetuous, mannerless child of seven who’d lost her mother to madness and her father to drink and disinterest. She’d told Tobias to wipe his nose and shut his mouth so people wouldn’t take him for a halfwit; he’d said she didn’t deserve to work at Dethemere Castle and probably wouldn’t last there a week.

  They’d been inseparable ever since.

  When, exactly, things had started to change, Tobias couldn’t quite remember. It came to him at odd moments, this sense that she was something more than a friend. There were times when he was gripped with a terrible foreboding that he might lose her someday, as he’d lost his family; and he knew he could not survive it. From this he understood that she’d become essential to his life.