The Winter Queen Read online

  I glanced at Robbie who was so eager to please, and I smiled, making a show of handling the dresses and finally settling on a white tulle dress with satin flowers on the shoulders, which looked the least decadent of them all.

  “A splendid choice. I think that will suit you well. The fires will be lit, so hopefully, you should be comfortable enough.”

  As we returned back down the corridor, I stopped outside the room, which was mine for the time being with the intention of hanging my dress up near the fire and hopefully causing some of the creases to fall out and for some of the odour of damp to disappear.

  “Don’t go yet,” he said, continuing to walk down the corridor. “I have something that I think will go with that dress perfectly.”

  With the dress still over my arm, I followed him until he stopped outside a room, which unlike all the others on this floor, had double rooms. Pushing them open, he exposed an opulent room decorated in black and ochre with beautiful oriental style cranes painted on the walls. A lacquered four poster bed was an imposing feature of the room, but there was equally impressive furniture, all highly ornate, all around the room.

  “This was my mother’s room,” he explained, heading towards the dressing table.

  He took out a key from her drawer and then approached one of the panels, which slid back to expose a metal safe embedded in the wall. Within a couple of minutes, he approached me, holding out a beautiful tiara studded with aqua marines and diamonds, which looked as if it had been carved from ice.

  “Oh, my!” I gasped. “That’s beautiful but I can’t… I can’t wear this. I’d be terrified that something might happen to it.”

  “And if it did, so what? It’s worth nothing now. Diamonds in a world where there is no food suddenly aren’t the most precious thing in the world. It would give me great pleasure to see you wear it – as if somehow my mother was still with us this evening.”

  I took the glittering jewels in my hand and couldn’t help admiring it as I twisted it this way and that to capture the light in its facets.

  “But I thought you said everybody sort of dressed down for the Yule Ball.”

  “They do,” he laughed. “But it’s also the one night of the year when maids get to play princesses.”

  He took the tiara back from my hand and gently placed it on my head. “I’m not sure it works with your current wardrobe,” he smiled, “but it suits you. It mirrors the blue in your eyes.”

  My heart fluttered with the look that had returned to his eye. He was captivated by me, and the sudden rush of power this charged me with emboldened me enough to reach forward and kiss him. His arms wrapped around me and he pulled me towards him until I felt deliciously crushed. Our kiss was long and indulgent, fuelled by desire and fear. It felt stolen and that made it all the sweeter.

  “Don’t,” he said finally breaking our kiss, but I knew he didn’t mean it. “You’ll make it so much worse.”

  He was right. What was I doing? I was leaving this place tomorrow – and when I had left, he and everybody else in the house would die. The thought shook me and tears sprang to my eyes and with it the fear that if I was wrong about the standing stones, if I was wrong about the turning, I would die, too.

  “I have things to do,” he said, holding me by the wrists at arms-length. “And if I don’t go now,” he glanced towards the bed with its beautiful silk throws, “I’m frightened that something is going to happen that we are both going to regret.”

  I wondered if he could feel the tremble of my skin, whether he could read the flush on my cheeks and whether he understood that I was standing on the very edge of a cliff, one small movement away from diving off and free-falling.

  “I wouldn’t regret it,” I said, shocking myself.

  I could see the decision turning in his head. I could see the desire in his eyes and the temptation as he bit down on his lips trying to fight his lust, because that was what all this was. We didn’t even know each other. And as much as I had never understood that whole falling for a stranger thing, now I did – and it defied proper reason. It was something basic and powerful, something animal and irresponsible. All the things I had never been; a child always so serious, so proper, so rule-abiding. I continued to look at him defiantly, challenging him to take charge, to give permission.

  He dropped my wrists. “I have to go,” he said walking briskly to the door. “I look forward to seeing you later, May. In the meantime, I’ll send Millie up to help you with your preparations. The water-system is a little temperamental.”

  “Okay,” I said with a voice thick with emotion.

  Before he left, he turned, and said, “Please, May – don’t think that this isn’t tearing me apart. It’s so cruel that fate should have sent you when I asked.”

  His emphasis on the word ‘you’ didn’t go unnoticed and not for the first time, something jarred in my thoughts, like a record skipping a note.

  CHAPTER 7.

  I stood there long after he had left, wondering what was going on. He had given me no reason to be afraid, and yet I was, and my fear was blending with other new intoxicating feelings. With no sense of urgency, I headed back to my room, where Millie was already fuelling the fire on her hands and knees.

  “Thank you, Millie,” I said laying the white tulle dress over the back of the chair so that it would get maximum warmth. I still held the tiara, and Millie clocked it, casting me a strange, unreadable expression before returning to her task at the fire.

  “Could you please help me deal with the ancient bathroom?” I asked.

  She sprang to her knees, happy to have created a healthy fire in the hearth. “Of course, my lady.”

  “Would you please not call me that, Millie. I’m no lady. I’m just an ordinary girl. Please, call me May.”

  “May? That’s such a pretty name. What does it mean?”

  “It’s the month I was born. It means spring.”

  She visibly startled. “Spring? Your name means spring?” she asked as if not able to fully accept this piece of information.

  I laughed slightly nervously, anxious that my name should elicit such strong emotion in her.

  “Yes. What of it?”

  “No reason,” she said, scurrying to towards the bathroom. “No reason, my lady.”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. The sooner I got home, the better. Things were beginning to tilt in a direction that were making me very uncomfortable. Why was it feeling suddenly that I was somebody more important than I felt, that … I stopped in my tracks, all at once, small cogs engaging.

  “I was brought here on purpose,” I muttered to myself. “My name means Spring – and they’re trapped in eternal winter. What was it that Robbie said? When I asked. Who did he ask?”

  “Are you alright, my lady?” May asked, as she stood before me, ringing her hands.

  “Yes,” I shook my head, betraying my true state. “May… do you know why I’m here?”

  She laughed nervously. “What do you mean, my lady?”

  “I think you know exactly what I mean, Millie,” I said, squaring up to her.

  “You were badly injured. The Ghoul got you – you were badly bit, and Lord Rime brought you here so that you could recover.”

  “What do you know of the Ghoul?”

  “It lives in the woods, my lady. Between the trees, in the mists – and when it needs to feed, it turns into something from your own imagination – well, that’s what they say down in the village.”

  “And Lord Rime was out hunting this Ghoul when he discovered me?”

  Millie chewed on her cheek. “Why yes, my lady.”

  I shook my head. “No, no – it’s just I’m trying to exactly remember what happened and it’s all a bit of a blur. Do you know if he went out alone or whether there were others with him?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s not part of the master’s life that I know much about, I’m afraid.”

  “And you don’t know why Lord Rime was out hunting the Ghoul?”
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  The question seemed to flummox her. “Because… well, because I guess it’s evil, and it’s been preying on the young women in the village. He probably wants to kill it so he can protect them.”

  It sounded logical enough, but why go to the effort when everybody was going to die soon enough anyway? Something didn’t make sense about it.

  “Is there something wrong, my lady?” she asked, nervously.

  “No,” I smiled. “Just thinking through things. I need to get home tomorrow, you see.”

  Millie simply nodded and turned back towards the bathroom with the silent instruction that I should follow her.

  A couple of hours later, Millie was finally satisfied that I was ready enough for the evening. I had never been so fussed over in all of my life. She had insisted on doing my hair, painstakingly heating the iron rod in the fire and curling my straggling dark hair around to emphasise my natural waves, and then she had insisted on tidying every aspect of my unruly body, massaging my back and neck with lavender oil to ensure I felt completely relaxed, as well as looking beautiful.

  I idly wondered what Tom would say if he could see my transformation, and a little tug in my heart created a wave of home-sickness.

  “Are you taking a date tonight?” I asked Millie.

  She blushed and smiled. “Yes. I’m going with David. Lord Rime’s Forester.”

  “Wow – a forester,” I teased. “I bet he’s handsome and strong.”

  Her blush deepened. “Yes, he’s very handsome, and built like a boulder.”

  “Are you seeing each other?”

  “Not properly,” she muttered under her breath.

  There was clearly some kind of story attached to the situation but I didn’t know Millie enough to risk prying further.

  “Well, Christmas, Yule,” I corrected, “Is always a magical time. There’s so much romance in the air – people do all kinds of reckless things.”

  She smiled sadly. “Yes. I guess you’re right. And you? Is there anybody at home who your heart is missing?”

  I found her question even more pertinent after her discovery of me and Robbie earlier that day in the ball room. Even though I didn’t think she had seen us kissing, her face had told us that she knew she had interrupted something she shouldn’t.

  I shook my head. “No, not really,” I said, faintly thinking of Tom.

  “That’s good then,” she said, screwing her eyes together rapidly with the impression she had let something slip that she shouldn’t have.

  “Why’s that?” I laughed.

  “Erm,” she stalled, walking around to my back to do up the row of small mother of pearl buttons on the back of the dress. “I was just thinking how sad you would feel to be spending Yule here rather than with the man you loved.”

  “Well,” I sighed. “Sometimes you just have to make the most of where you are, I suppose,” I said turning my head over my shoulder and smiling.

  “Optimism is a good trait to have, my lady. If only our own king was blessed in such a way.”

  “Yes, Robbie said that this endless winter is the result of the King’s grief.”

  Millie nodded. “Yes, it was a terrible way for her to go.”

  “The queen?”

  “To be so young and full of life and to have it cut short because of one silly mistake.”

  “Dying in childbirth?”

  Millie rounded on me and stared at me. “She didn’t die in childbirth, whatever gave you that idea. The King had her executed, in front of everybody.”

  “He had her killed! Why? What on earth could she have done so bad that he had her killed?”

  “She was with child --.”

  “No! That’s awful. He killed his own child, too.”

  “It wasn’t his. That was the point.”

  “Then whose was it?”

  Millie screwed her foot into the floor and picked at the end of her cotton belt.

  “The king’s best friend admitted to it.”

  “But wasn’t the king’s best friend…” Robbie. That’s what Robbie had said. “The accident? The one that killed Lord Rime’s parents – it wasn’t an accident, was it? Why would he admit to it”

  “There were rumours around court.”

  “What kind of rumours?”

  “Rumours that it wasn’t Old Lord Rime who was really the father of the baby.”

  “Then why would he admit ---?” My mind crashed with the realisation. “Oh, my lord, it was Robbie! Robbie had an affair with the queen and his father took the blame to save him.”

  Millie was flushing hard and I wondered why if the story was attached to such shame and secrecy, why she had decided to tell me.

  “In her final moment, just before the sword fell, she was said to have uttered a curse on her true love – the one who had abandoned her to her fate. You see, because she wouldn’t admit who it was, and because Robbie wouldn’t come forward, the King had her publically executed.”

  “Robbie left her to die? I can’t believe he’d do that.”

  “To be fair, Robbie didn’t know that such an ultimatum had been issued. His father sensing the water hotting up after the king confided his suspicions, sent Robbie away on some ambassadorial business. He had no idea about any of it until he arrived home the day after she had been killed.”

  “And she cursed him? Was she a witch?”

  “That was one of the other reasons the King gave for having her executed. He said that he had discovered her practicing the dark arts.”

  “But then, with all this, it doesn’t make sense that the King is coming here tonight. Surely, he wouldn’t want anything else to do with Lord Rime?”

  “The King still doesn’t know it was Robert.”

  “But you know, and you said there were rumours at court – how can he possibly not know? And if Lord Rime believes the King had his parents murdered…”

  “Lord Rime feels responsible for the sorrow that has been brought down on the kingdom. He knows that he is responsible for the King’s grief and the eternal winter. He has never been a bad man, just foolish and young and naïve. The Queen had a way of always getting exactly what she wanted. There was no doubt that she would have set about a course of seduction that would have been very hard for nay man to resist, not alone a sixteen-year-old boy. I guess that Lord Rime thinks that maybe, if he can somehow make the king happy, that his mood might lift and we might just be enough to restart the season change.”

  “And how does Lord Rime hope to make the king happy?”

  “He has an idea. One that might just work.”

  “And can I know what this idea is?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Sure. It involves nothing more than a simple love potion and a pretty girl. He has somebody in mind whose perfect.”

  “Not me, I hope,” I scoffed, laughing almost hysterically, my adrenalin beginning to kick in.

  “No silly!” Millie said, smiling. “Whatever gave you that idea? Besides, I think Lord Rime has fallen for you himself,” she said coquettishly.

  “So who is she? Which girl is to be offered up as sacrificial lamb?”

  “It’s not like that. She’s perfectly happy with the arrangement. I mean, who wouldn’t be? To be queen with all the kingdom’s riches at your disposal. The palace is truly beautiful. There’s not a woman in the kingdom who wouldn’t sell her soul to be queen.”

  “Um, I guess the feminist movement isn’t such a thing here then,” I said, screwing my nose up in slight disgust that the women of the kingdom think it okay to basically prostitute themselves in order to wear a pretty dress and a diamond crown.

  “He’s a good king,” Millie said, defensively.

  “If you say so,” I muttered.

  “Right, well, it’s nearly time I was going. I’ve got to go and make myself beautiful for my handsome forest man,” she said, grinning. She was just about to leave before she stopped, “Opps, I nearly forgot the most important thing,” she said bending to retrieve the tiara from the end of the
bed. “The finishing touch.”

  She placed the diamond tiara onto my head and secured it with pins before stepping back to admire her handy work. “You look truly beautiful, May.”

  “Thank you – and thank you for all your help.”

  I was desperate to see what I looked like, but it was then that I realised I couldn’t recall seeing a mirror anywhere in the house, which struck me as strange for a house of this kind. “Is there somewhere I can see a mirror?”

  Millie was already half-way out of the door when I asked, and I didn’t quite catch her answer as she hurried away to go and get herself ready for the night’s party. After all the time she’d spent with me, it didn’t feel right to call her back and ask again – besides, it would be a good excuse to explore the house a little what with there only being a few more hours until I left.

  After opening almost all of the upstairs doorways and not discovering a mirror in any of the rooms, I approached the last couple of doors with trepidation. One of them was bound to be Robbie’s room, and I wasn’t sure what he would make of me knocking on his bedroom door – that’s if he was in, which I hoped he was so that I could steal one last kiss before my fairytale ended. And if I was truthful, there was another reason I hoped to bump into Robbie in private.

  The conversation with Millie had deeply disturbed me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that my arrival had something to do with Robbie’s plan to make amends to the king and save the kingdom – even though Milly had looked truthful enough when she had told me I had nothing to fear.

  I didn’t know anybody in this world well enough to entirely trust them – but I knew that if I kissed Robbie one more time, there would be something in that kiss that told me the truth. Kisses can betray but they can never lie – that was the thing was kisses, they exposed one person’s soul to the other and nothing could be hidden. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, recalling the kisses we had already shared during the course of the day. Two kisses, both deep and full of truth. Surely I would have known. Surely I was safe. In another world, Robbie and I would have fallen in love – in some small way, I already was in love with him – or at least, I was in love with the idea of him, and I knew he had feelings for me; feelings that had taken him by surprise and swamped him. I had seen it in his jaw-line earlier.