Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [124]
“It won’t last long, and you will pay for it later,” Mother Chilton said. “One always pays, for everything. But you already know that better than most, Roger Kilbourne, do you not? Come.”
Then the great throne room doors were unlocked and open—how?—and we three walked through them. Something more had happened to my brain. Now it floated just above my head, keen-eyed but somehow unable to formulate a clear thought. I was seeing everything, understanding all, but deciding nothing. Mother Chilton decided, and I was content to obey without question, a plant turning its leaves to follow the sun. The drink . . . there had been something in the drink. . . .
Mother Chilton led us through the vast throne room, once filled with Lord Solek’s men chanting his glory as he arrived in The Queendom:Ay-la ay-la mechel ah!
Ay-la ay-la mechel ah!
Bee-la kor-so tarel ah!
Ay-la ay-la mechel ah!
It seemed as if the savage song still filled my ears, although now the huge room was silent and empty. Mother Chilton stopped at a blank expanse of wall to the left of the dais and moved her fingers quickly over sections of stone: first high, then low, then high again. The stone swung open.
Maggie gasped, but I merely smiled. It was all right. Everything was all right since I drank the potion, and of course there were secret passages in the palace, hadn’t I always known so? Silly Maggie, to wonder at that. The queen had needed . . . What had the queen needed? There was something I was supposed to remember about the queen, but I could not. All I remembered was her bending over me in the candlelight of her privy chamber, more beautiful than any painting, handing me a goblet of wine. I was just back from a journey—what journey? Where? I couldn’t seem to remember, and yet it was there, somewhere in my mind . . . something about the queen. . . .
“Come,” Mother Chilton said.
Another staircase. But I climbed this one easily, without strain. And why not? Everything was all right, had always been all right, always would be all right. I smiled at Maggie, who glared at me, and I climbed the spiral stairs. A tower . . . we were ascending a tower. Glory had only one tower. Hadn’t I climbed it before? I couldn’t quite remember.
Another door, and we stood in a tiny room, smaller than even the apple cellar. Two vertical slits in the stone wall let in daylight. Mother Chilton closed the door behind her.
Maggie said fiercely, “What potion did you give him?”
“That’s not for you to question, child,” Mother Chilton said.
“If you knew of this secret room, then why did I have to hide him in the apple cellar? Where there was more chance of him being found?”
“This room is not secret while the queen lives.”
The queen. There was something I was supposed to remember about the queen. . . .
I said lazily, “I smell smoke.”
Maggie gave a cry and darted to one of the vertical slits in the wall. What could be out there? Smiling at her eagerness, I moved toward the second slit.
“Have a care, Roger,” Mother Chilton said quietly. “The potion will wear off very soon.”
“Oh,” I said, unconcerned. I put my eye to the slit.
The tiny room looked out over one of the bridges spanning the river from palace to countryside. At first I could not understand what I was seeing. A bonfire—was it Midsummer’s Eve, then? There were bonfires on Midsummer’s Eve, always. But although I couldn’t seem to remember the date, wasn’t it too early for Midsummer’s Eve? Or too late? Anyway, bonfires were for nighttime. This was full day. People, many people, were running away from the bonfire. Villagers and palace servants, all scattering and screaming. What a noise! Other people were trying to get close to the bonfire, and those people seemed to be soldiers, with more soldiers stopping them. . . . None of it made sense.
Why was Maggie crying like that?
Something strange was happening with the soldiers, most of whom were dressed in blue. No,