The Queen's Poisoner

“And you will!” she said smiling. “Through Owen. The king is sending you with him. Don’t you see? It gives you permission to be near him, to advise him. To help him gain the information he needs to survive. I’ve wrapped your fates together in silk threads. You need each other to be successful. I won’t be able to come with you.”

Owen started in surprise. “You’re not coming?”

“I can’t, Owen,” she said. “I’m very sick. It is difficult even coming down the steps into the kitchen. Mancini is going. He will help you, and you must help him.”

Owen blinked back tears. “I don’t want him to help me.”

“You should have mentioned that down in the cistern, boy,” Mancini said sharply.

“He already has,” Ankarette said. “Owen, he saved your life. He was the one who rushed down to save you. He was there for you. He pulled you and Elysabeth Victoria Mortimer from danger.”

Mancini came closer, looming over them both. “I don’t want to be saddled with this brat!” he chuffed.

She looked up at him. “He will not always be this small, Dominic.” She stroked Owen’s hair again. “Do you remember the last time the Fountain touched someone so young?”

Mancini snorted. “That Maid of Donremy was a trick of the King of Occitania!”

“No, Dominic,” Ankarette said. “She was Fountain-blessed. She was just a little girl, but she led the army that overthrew Ceredigion’s influence in Occitania. There are many who remember her. Duke Horwath remembers her. Her legend will last for centuries to come. Owen . . . our Owen will be like that. Remember the Battle of Azinkeep? The King of Ceredigion defeated twenty thousand and only lost eighty of his own men. He became the ruler of Occitania when he married the princess and her father died. He was Fountain-blessed.”

Mancini shook his head. “But we’ve only been pretending the boy is! You expect me to keep up the ruse forever? To continue to deceive the king into thinking the boy is something he’s not? I couldn’t possibly . . . !”

Ankarette closed her eyes, breathing softly, as if she were in great pain. “You must, Dominic. Because I tell you, I tell you truly, the boy is Fountain-blessed!” She opened her eyes, piercing the spy with her gaze. “I know what I speak of. He can hear it. He can sense it. He must learn how to become what he has the potential to be, and for that, he will need help. It really takes one who is Fountain-blessed to teach another. Tunmore trained me. I won’t be alive long enough to teach him that.” She turned to Owen, running her hand along his arm. “That is why the Fountain sent me to you. From the very moment of your birth. Owen, it takes years to learn about your powers. To be able to control them. To fuel them. It takes a rigor of will and self-discipline that most simply do not have. That you can already tap into this, even slightly, is a sign you’re just as special as I’ve always thought you were.” She gazed at the structure he had made out of the tiles, unable to hide a pleased smile. “But for someone like us, the rigor of it is not even work. We enjoy it.”

Owen’s heart was on fire. He grabbed the silk fabric of her dress, the lacings at her front. “You have to come! I . . . I can’t do it without you! Please, Ankarette! Please! I can’t do this!”

She gave him a sympathetic but firm look. Her hand rested on his shoulder. “You must, Owen.”

Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. “No! I’ve lost Elysabeth Victoria Mortimer. I’ve lost my parents. I can’t lose you too! I need your help! I won’t know what to do if you are not around to tell me what to say!”

“The boy is right,” Mancini said darkly. “I’m a poor substitute for your cleverness. Besides, you have not upheld your end of the bargain. You promised me your story! You promised me the tale.”

She sighed and patted Owen’s shoulder with a trembling hand. “I gave him the story,” she said to Mancini. “If you want to learn it, you must keep him alive.”

Mancini ground his teeth in frustration. “You tricked me.”

“No,” she said. “I always deliver what I promise. In my own way. But you of all people know it is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”

He gasped when she said this and Owen didn’t know why. The look he gave her was full of incredulity . . . and respect. Something she had said had shot straight into his heart, leaving him flummoxed. Ankarette slowly rose.

Mancini was stuttering. “You are the most duplicitous, the most conniving, the most scheming . . . the best spy I have ever met!” He gave her a grudging smile. “You’ve read my journal. Even though it’s written in Genevese ciphers.”