The Queen's Poisoner

He stole away from the Mortimer girl on the pretext of using the garderobe and then slipped into the secret tunnels that honeycombed the palace at Kingfountain. He couldn’t wait until nightfall because then he wouldn’t be able to see very well. The tunnels were musty, but the arrow slits in the walls provided some light, and he had grown accustomed to slinking about in the shadows. He was quiet and careful, always listening for the sound of bootsteps coming from ahead or behind. He had a knack for hearing things out of place and for treading softly. The thought of becoming an Espion had its charms.

From an arrow hole in the wall of Ankarette’s tower, he had a good view of the walled-off area, though it was overgrown with trees. He could see a giant hole in the center of the enclosure. It was the strangest-looking well he had seen. It had eight sides, each with various rows that narrowed like a funnel the deeper it went. At first he thought it was a series of benches like the small amphitheater in the garden at Tatton Hall, but this wasn’t a semicircle, it was a full circle. The center of the well hole was a big eight-pointed star. There were crushed stones and pebbles around it and small sluices that led to the eight points around the perimeter.

It looked like a very interesting place to explore. How to find the way in?

Owen spent some time exploring various tunnels around where he thought the entrance must be, but realizing it would require more diligent searching, he decided to wait until after nightfall. After supper, he spent time in the kitchen arranging tiles in the shape he had seen, earning some curious comments from the Mortimer girl, which he chose not to answer because he wanted to surprise her. He was eager for nightfall to arrive so he could begin his search. He would need a candle if he were going to explore new sections of the tunnels, so he made sure to blow out his night candle early to conserve the wax.

As he walked the dark tunnels between the palace’s walls later that evening, he remembered his first nights in the palace and how frightened he had been of all the new sounds. He had grown more accustomed to them and could now differentiate the familiar from the strange. The interior ways were narrow, only wide enough for a single person to pass, but they interconnected the major portions of the palace. Most of the tunnels were as tall as the corridors they lined, and in some places rungs were hammered into the stone to provide access to higher floors. In other places, the tunnels were so narrow a man would have to go sideways through them. Those would have been a problem for Mancini, Owen thought with a smirk, but they were sized perfectly for an eight-year-old boy. At various points, they would connect to the tower stairwells, but some towers had secret ways.

Owen rubbed his hands on the stone walls, feeling the grooves between blocks of stone. He counted the floor blocks too, using that as a measure to help him orient himself. At every junction, there was a symbol carved into a flat stone at the corner, which also provided a way to find something in the dark. He normally kept to the main aisles, running the perimeter of the castle. Tonight, he intended to explore some new ones. His fat candle was impaled on a nail protruding from the stubby bronze candlestick he gripped and held before him as he explored. The normal day-to-day sounds of the castle began to abate as he explored, delving deeper into new tunnels that hopefully hid the secret of the garden well.

Part of him was growing anxious. He did not know how long he had been wandering, but he knew Ankarette would be waiting for him in the tower. He wanted to be able to boast his discovery to her, to prove that he had learned his lessons and could find things on his own. But he could not find any path that led there, and he was getting the feeling that he should turn back and continue his quest another night.

But he was also a stubborn little boy and he really wanted to find it, so he persisted and continued the search despite the nagging feeling in his stomach that increased with each step. He was not entirely certain where he was and thought, with a sick feeling in his stomach, that he might even be lost.

A sound whispered from the corridor behind him. It was a footfall. Not the sound of a boot in the corridor beyond the wall. The sound of someone approaching within the tunnel. It was coming from behind him.

The queasiness blossomed inside Owen and a cold sweat started on his brow. Going back was no longer an option. The tunnel was narrow and there was no place to hide, so Owen hurried forward, hoping to find an escape into the main palace corridor. It would be infinitely better to be punished for wandering the hall at night than to be caught in the Espion corridor. His little heart started to hammer wildly in his chest and the blackness in front of him became even darker somehow.

He heard the footfalls again, coming closer.