The Fatal Child by John Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page B

same. As for my request to you …’
    He noted the flicker in her eyes as he returned to the subject she had avoided.
    ‘… I can only say that it is of
great
importance. I ask for your trust in this.’
    ‘A matter of state? Yet you have not spoken to the King of it.’
    ‘You will forgive me for my presumption, my lady. I had thought that I might more readily obtain your help if I came to you in secret. And also if I promised you that I would neither harm this “Hidden King” nor tell anyone else of his whereabouts, so long as I might safely return with the child.’
    ‘You have not lost all your wits, then,’ she said.
    You have not lost all your wits
. That was her mother, indeed!
    She was looking at him, thinking. He waited.
    ‘You realize that there is every chance she will die on her journey? Indeed that she may already be dead?’
    Another diversion. He shrugged it off. ‘Perhaps not. There is some hope. Her maid accompanied her. They stole provisions from the convent kitchens and a mule from the stables.’
    ‘So. But her chance of finding the one she is looking for is that of finding a feather in straw.’
    ‘I think – it will depend on whether her dreams were more than mere dreams,’ he said carefully.
    Silence.
    ‘Say what you mean, Thomas.’
    ‘
Witchcraft
, my lady.’
    He should have guessed it. The moment Atti had spoken of a dream that had not been one of her nightmares, he should have been alert. He should have put the thought of this Hidden King, who might be somewhere in Tarceny, together with the memory that in past days Tarceny had dealt with black evil. Vexed by the hundred daily urgencies of the King’s court, he had not – until it was too late. The thought of that failure was like a goad. It had burned in him all the way here, to the one person he could think of who might tell him what he needed. And she had leaped at him, not when she had heard that he had a mission but when she had learned what that mission was. That confirmed his thought. The Lady of Develinknew something that was dangerous to speak of.
    What do you know, my lady, and how? And how far will you trust me, Thomas Padry, whom your mother would have trusted to the death?
    Out in the passage he heard the murmur of voices, the shuffle of feet. Familiar sounds: councillors waiting to be admitted, swapping whispered guesses about what it was that had brought the lord chancellor so far to the south. Beyond them rose all the other noises of the castle: feet on boards overhead, horses in the courtyard, a harsh voice calling something to someone, the drone of the breeze in the open casement. Two hundred people had made their living under the old Widow’s roof. It did not seem to be less than that now. And he stood eye to eye with the Widow’s daughter, and the shadow of witchcraft was between them.
    ‘I think it possible that you are right,’ she said at last.
    ‘And this …’ She sighed. ‘This is what disturbs me most of all. Not for your sake or hers, but for his.’
    ‘Then you do know of him?’
    ‘Yes, I do. And yes, I suppose he may know where this child is.’
    Her fingers tapped the arm of her chair, once, twice.
    ‘I have your promise that you mean him no harm?’
    ‘Absolutely, my lady. My life on it!’
    ‘Good, Thomas. But have you a man you can trust for this? Someone you can trust as much as I am trusting you? I should warn you that the road may be harder than you would think possible.’
    He thought, and nodded. ‘I have. One, only. But yes.’
    ‘For you must
not
go, Thomas. That is my condition. You must return yourself to Gueronius.
He
is your duty. Each day that passes without you at his side is dangerous for all of us. Your conscience should tell you that, but if it does not prick you then let me be the other spur. This house has suffered enough from the whims of kings – as you know.’
    ‘My lady, I know. And I will go.’
    ‘As swiftly as you can, Thomas. I shall not sleep well