The Queen's Poisoner

“Thank you. I made it,” Ankarette said. She went to the table with the potions and began mixing up a cup of tea.

“How?” he asked in amazement, but she did not answer as she worked on the drink. Then his eyes narrowed in on the curtains on the bed, done in darker threads, and shot down to the similarly designed carpet. Everything in the room, from the table to the bookshelves, had little ornamented embroideries.

“You did all of these?” Owen declared. His mother and sisters did sewing, but nothing this fancy.

“I like embroidery,” she said modestly. “That is my gift. I never tire of it. You like to stack tiles, true?”

He nodded, touching the fringe of a shawl draped over the only chair in the room.

“I normally don’t receive visitors,” she said. “You are the first to have been in my tower in many years. Here, drink this. It will help with your wheezing. Your lungs are weak and in need of some medicine.”

He eyed the cup suspiciously but it smelled fragrant and when he tasted it, he could tell she had added honey. It had a strange flavor, but not unpleasant. As he sipped, his eyes went hungrily to the Wizr board sitting on a small wooden pedestal. The pieces were carved out of alabaster . . . purple and white, with matching squares. The set filled the small round table.

“Do you play Wizr?”

Owen nodded eagerly. “I always used to watch my brothers play. But I like to play as well.”

“Would you like to play it with me?”

“Yes!” Owen said, slurping down the rest of the tea. “It’s normally black and white. This one is purple. I want to be purple.”

“I like to play white,” she said. She went over and knelt on the rug by the pedestal and board.

“How do you play it by yourself?” Owen asked curiously, studying the board.

Ankarette moved the first piece. Owen followed, using his normal pattern of moving the middle pieces first. She captured his king in four moves.

Owen’s eyes stared at the board, then at her. “How . . . how did you do that so quickly?”

Ankarette smiled knowingly. “I will teach you. There are many strategies in Wizr. If you know them, they can help you win quickly. Would you like to learn them?”

Owen nodded with enthusiasm.

As they reset the few pieces, she asked him another question. “Owen . . . are you afraid of me because I’m a poisoner?”

His head whipped up and he looked at her, his eyes betraying his emotions. He nodded, but did not say anything.

“Owen,” she said softly, putting the last piece in its place. “Please understand. I only poison dangerous people. And only when it becomes absolutely necessary. I would be a little afraid if I were in your place. But I wanted to show you my tower so you would see that being a poisoner is a very small part of who I am. It is one way I serve the queen, yes, but I also serve her by giving her advice and counsel. When I was trained as a poisoner, I was also trained as a midwife. So part of my work involves death and another part involves . . . life.” She gave him a meaningful look he didn’t understand. Then she brushed her hands together. “I also try to remove threats to the kingdom without resorting to poison. I like to make beautiful things. I do a lot of . . . thinking . . . while I stitch. My mind goes this way and that, studying a situation from many angles. That’s why I am very good at Wizr.”

She put her hands down in her lap. “I want to help you, Owen. But if I am to help you, I need to trust you, and you need to trust me. I brought you to my tower. If you told anyone that I lived up here, the king would send soldiers to kill me.”

Owen gasped, feeling a prickle of unease go down his back. He wouldn’t do that!

She nodded seriously. “So you see . . . I am trusting you. But that is what friends do, Owen. I want to be your friend. Not just because the queen told me to help you, but also because I like you. I will do my best to come up with a plan to keep you safe. I will teach you Wizr. I will teach you all about poisons, so you will know by smell if something is harmful. I will give you potions that will help you breathe better and make you stronger. But Owen, I will never ask you to poison the king or anyone else. That would be wrong of me, wouldn’t it?”

Owen nodded vigorously, his eyes wide.

“The queen has not asked me to harm the king, even though he is a dangerous man. He is the last heir of the Argentine family. If he dies, there will be terrible calamity. And Dunsdworth can’t inherit because his father was guilty of treason.”

“What did he do?” Owen asked with eagerness.