Hysteria Read online

  Kenna turned to give her a look and handed her the reins to her horse. “I’m going inside to find out what has changed,” she told her friend. “Find someone to take care of the horses and I’ll meet you inside.”

  “Yes, milady,” Greer muttered under her breath as Kenna disappeared inside. “As you wish, milady.”

  The tavern was quiet but clean; a few men sat at long tables, eating breakfast in peace. Kenna pulled down her hood, her hair loose about her face instead of tied back in the intricate braids she had worn on her last visit.

  “Can I help you?”

  A large woman, armed with a wooden charger and empty flagon, looked Kenna up and down.

  “Y-y-yes,” Kenna stuttered, remembering herself. “I was hoping to get some breakfast.”

  “Traveling, are you?” the woman asked, gesturing toward an empty table. “We’ve got empty rooms if you need a bed.”

  “Or you’re welcome to bunk down with me,” a man called across the room, shaking with laughter. His friends clapped him on the back and knocked their wooden mugs together.

  Kenna gave them a pleasant smile but stayed where she was. What was taking Greer so long?

  “Ignore them,” the woman told her. “They wouldn’t know what to do with a young thing like you. We don’t get many young ladies riding through. What brings you to Auxerre?”

  “I’m a seamstress on my way home to Auverne,” she said, pleased to get her story out. “We were delivering dresses to the castle.”

  “And they didn’t feed you before you left?” the tavern mistress asked. “Not that I should be surprised, I’ve heard terrible things about that place.”

  Kenna nodded, encouraging her to go on as she poured out a flagon of ale and placed a plate full of hard-looking bread in front of her. Ale? At breakfast? Kenna pried a small chunk of bread from the loaf and chewed, trying not to show her displeasure.

  “They tried to interfere in our business recently,” the woman went on in a conspiratorial voice that wasn’t quite the whisper she imagined. “But we took care of it.”

  “Took care of it?” Kenna echoed.

  “They won’t be back to interfere again,” the woman said. “If you know what I mean.”

  Swallowing hard, Kenna frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t, no.”

  “No one went back to the castle, girl,” one of the men at the neighboring table shouted as the tavern mistress walked away. “We took care of them. And the little witch, too.”

  Kenna couldn’t keep the look of confusion and alarm from her face and instead picked up the flagon of ale to cover her expression. “Took care of them?” she said, her voice breaking as she spoke. “You’re saying you killed them?”

  “You’ve both said quite enough,” the tavern mistress said, her back to Kenna. “Haven’t you got jobs to go to?”

  “We have, now the devil has been chased out of the village,” another man replied. “We start on the mill today.”

  “We should have had it up years ago,” another said. “If those witch-worshipping Févriers had let us build on their precious land.”

  “May the devil dance on their souls,” the first one said, spitting on the floor. “Duquesne is meeting us here; we’ll be out of your way shortly, Annette.”

  Kenna leapt to her feet so quickly, she knocked her ale and bread to the floor.

  “Is something wrong?” The tavern mistress turned to give Kenna a black look. “Or is my food not good enough for a seamstress from Auverne who sews dresses for the queen?”

  “No, that’s not it at all.” Kenna grabbed at the fallen food and tossed a coin on the table. “I just remembered, I don’t think I left water for my horse. He’ll be thirsty from the ride; I should tend to him.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.”

  Kenna turned around to see Duquesne standing in the doorway.

  “Kenna de Poitiers, isn’t it?” he asked. “Wife of the king’s bastard? Or is it mistress of the king? One gets so confused by the sordid goings-on at court.”

  The tavern mistress stood behind Kenna, giving her nowhere to run. “I thought you said you were a seamstress from Auverne.”

  “No,” Duquesne said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Like everyone associated with the new king, she’s a liar. Jacques, Martin, take her to the stable.”

  “Wait, no!” Kenna screamed as the two men rose from their table. “Please, I wanted to find out the truth about Alys. I believe you. I want to prove it to the king and queen.”

  “Perhaps so,” Duquesne said, stepping aside as the men grabbed Kenna roughly under each arm. “Or perhaps you too are a witch who needs to be cleansed.”

  “Don’t do this, please,” Kenna pleaded as they pulled her toward the door. “My husband will kill anyone who lays a hand on me, I swear it.”

  Duquesne stepped closer to Kenna as she struggled against her captors and held out his hand until it was pressed fully against her cheek. “Look at that,” he said in a low voice. “I laid a hand on you and yet here I stand. As I said, everyone from the castle is a liar. Take her away.”

  The more Kenna struggled, the tighter the men held on, dragging her outside into the street and face-to-face with Greer.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “What—?”

  Kenna pressed her lips together and shook her head as the men pushed Greer out of the way and carried Kenna off.

  “My friends will come for me!” she yelled as the men picked her up and carried her toward the church. “My friends will come.”

  Stunned, Greer stood outside the tavern and watched her best friend being dragged off through the village streets while no one did a thing. Before she could act, the tavern door opened again and an older, gray-haired man walked out into the sunshine, smiling.

  “Oh, Kenna,” she whispered, ducking her head and following as closely behind as she dared. “What have you gotten us into?”

  The sun seemed to rise more slowly than usual the next morning. Mary lay on her side, clinging to the edge of the bed and gazing out the window, watching the sky turn orange, then pink, and then fade into a pale, cloudless blue. It was as beautiful a dawn as any she had ever seen and yet she couldn’t shift the sadness inside her.

  Francis turned over in his half sleep, pulling at the bedcovers and shifting his body so that he could wrap an arm around her waist. Sighing with contentment, he rested his hand lightly on her flat stomach and nestled his face into the nape of her neck. The recent events hadn’t robbed him of his sleep as they had Mary. She had spent what felt like the whole night wide awake, staring at the canopy above their bed and searching for a solution that would save everyone.

  She couldn’t stand the thought of sending two girls to their death. She couldn’t stand the thought of Francis being made to look weak by rebellious villagers. She couldn’t stand the thought that she would spend another day without a baby growing inside her. Having the girls in the palace was a painful reminder that she remained childless. She had grown too attached to them. She needed to start thinking like a queen and not as a girl who grew up under constant threat and persecution. It was too easy to see herself in Alys, and that was an act of empathy a queen could scarcely afford.

  Of all the things that plagued her, there was only one she could act upon at that moment. Rolling over, Mary slipped her legs between her husband’s and pressed her cool, soft body against him. Francis’s lips curled upward, his eyes still closed as Mary combed her fingers through his hair, pulling lightly in the way that he liked, and gently pressed her mouth to his.

  “Am I dreaming?” Francis whispered as her lips traveled down his throat, her hands massaging the taut muscles in his back. “This is a very pleasant way to start the day.”

  Mary combed long strands of brown hair out of her eyes and pressed her forehead to his. “I want to give you a child,” she replied, stroking his face with the tips of her fingers. “I want our sons and daughters to run around in the gardens and play in the secret passageways, as we once did.”


  Francis gently pushed her backward into the abundance of feather pillows on their bed and gazed down at his wife. “You’re so beautiful when you wake up,” he said, pausing to capture the memory. “This is when you’re mine.”

  Mary smiled. She felt soft and gentle and loved. A feeling that felt far away some days. “I am always yours,” she promised. “Not just as your queen.”

  “Francis! Mary!”

  As the door to the private chamber was thrown open, it was all Mary could do to wrap herself in a bedsheet before Catherine and her servants let themselves in, unannounced.

  “Mother,” Francis exclaimed, his face flushed red as he tumbled back down on the bed. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Thank goodness you’re both all right.” Catherine, still in her nightgown and her hair loosely braided from the night before, rushed to the bed and embraced her son and, after a moment, Mary. “As soon as I heard the news, I had to see you both with my own eyes.”

  “What news?” Mary asked, pulling the bedclothes tighter and blinking as half a dozen guards followed the queen mother into the room. “What’s wrong?”

  “There has been another death,” Catherine said, her face solemn and just very slightly afraid. “Another servant is dead.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Duquesne sat on a milking stool near the entrance of the stable. A small oil lamp hung from the wall beside his face, illuminating his profile in the pitch black. Kenna, determined not to show how afraid she was, sat as far away from him as she could, cold, dirty straw beneath her and not even a chink of light coming in through the walls. The stable was so dark she couldn’t even tell how big it was, but it felt tiny, as though he were practically on top of her, even though there had to be at least ten feet between them. She could see nothing but his face, seemingly floating in midair.

  “If only the Févriers had run away as I suggested, none of this need have happened,” the disembodied head spoke in a low, laconic tone. Whatever his plans, he was in no rush. “Tell me, did your king really send a woman alone back to my village?”

  “Tell me, why were you trying to convince everyone that Alys is a witch?” Kenna countered.

  “She is a witch,” he said. “And now she is dead.”

  Kenna smiled in the darkness. “No, she’s quite well and living under the protection of the queen. What will happen when the other villagers find out she’s alive?”

  “The villagers believe what I tell them to believe,” Duquesne said, shifting on his stool, his face vanishing into the darkness. “And if she somehow survived and managed to cast a spell on the queen, well, that’s just more evidence of her wicked powers.”

  “I know you’re building a mill on the Févriers’ land.” Kenna played her cards quickly, hoping to surprise him into an admission of guilt. Even though she was his prisoner, to know the truth would be something. “I know you killed all those people.”

  He clucked his tongue and laughed. “You know nothing,” he said, laughing quietly. “The boldness of some women today shocks me.”

  “Why didn’t you build the mill on your own land?” she asked, pressing on with her questions. “Why did you need theirs?”

  “As I said, you know nothing,” Duquesne replied. “You can’t build a mill without a river and I no longer have land by the river since the last king took it from me.”

  Kenna closed her eyes. Even after his death, Henry was still causing problems. “Why would the king take your land?”

  “To bestow on one of his cronies.” The old man’s voice was seething. “Given to a man who has never even been near this village as thanks for some task that Henry was not prepared to perform himself. There was compensation, of course, but what good is money without land?”

  “You could have moved away,” Kenna said. “You could have bought land elsewhere.”

  “And why should I?” he demanded, his voice rising now, filling the dark, unpleasant space with a tangible rage. “I was born and raised in Auxerre, just like my father and his father before him. And then Février refused to let me build on his land, not that it would have mattered to him. He had everything, his wife, his perfect children, and the river running right through his land. We were practically family, he and my son played as brothers, and he refused me.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want a mill on his land?” she said. “It doesn’t sound as though it would be very safe.”

  “Given that’s how my son died, I imagine that’s exactly what Février was thinking,” Duquesne replied, calming himself. “But sometimes these things happen.”

  Kenna didn’t know what to say. He was a monster. Leaning her head back against the stable wall, she closed her eyes. The hard early-morning ride, her failed attempt at breakfast, and the darkness began to press in on her. Suddenly, she felt dizzy and hot and as though the walls she could not see were creeping in. The lamp at the entrance to the stable seemed to pull away and all she could see was the faint outline of her captor’s gray whiskers as he sat there in silence, barely even breathing.

  “It’s a shame your king had to involve you in this,” Duquesne said after a time. “Clearly he has no more concern for his subjects than the last king.”

  “My king didn’t send me,” Kenna said, adopting a new tactic. There had to be a way out of there. “I came of my own accord. After meeting Alys and hearing her story, I decided I would find out what happened to her family.”

  “So no one knows you’re here?” Duquesne clapped his hands together, a sharp, unexpected sound that made Kenna jump. “And so no one will miss you. Wonderful.”

  “I didn’t say that. All I meant was that this isn’t an officially sanctioned visit. My husband is with me,” she lied, realizing her mistake at once. “He’s waiting for me back by the river, and when I don’t return in an hour, he will come for me. You do remember my husband? He was the one who single-handedly fought several of your best men and left them bloodied on the ground.”

  “He was the one who fought a handful of unarmed, hysterical old men gripped by religious fervor and limped away with the blood of two innocent people on his hands,” Duquesne corrected. “I’m quaking in my boots, Lady Kenna. Besides, he’s not here.”

  Kenna held her breath. He was trying to call her bluff; there was no way he could know that for certain.

  “If your bastard husband were here, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this little chat, would we?” he reasoned, the light of the lamp tracing out his thin lips as he spoke. “Surely he wouldn’t allow his precious young bride to be left alone in a cold dark room with me? Who knows what could happen to her?”

  “Regardless of what you believe, you must be aware that I would not come without telling someone,” Kenna said, a bravado in her voice that surprised even herself. “My friends are waiting for me at the river.”

  “I don’t know.” He stood, blocking the light of the lamp and leaving Kenna in complete darkness. “You are a stupid, headstrong young girl. I could quite believe you came here alone. But I will send men to the river to make sure.”

  Kenna felt the darkness closing in as he opened up the lamp and blew out the tiny flame.

  “If any harm were to come to me, my husband and the king and queen would know exactly what happened,” she swore. “You will suffer for this.”

  “Not if there were never any evidence of your ever being here,” the old man said, unmoved by her threats. “And by nightfall, there won’t be.”

  Rubbing her bruised wrists, Kenna felt a single tear slide down her cheek as Duquesne slammed the stable door closed behind him. Silently, she willed Greer to find a way to get her out of there and prayed she hadn’t already started back to the castle. By the time she returned to Auxerre, Kenna could already be dead.

  “It is exactly as the last.” The medic pulled a white sheet down to uncover the face of the dead girl. Francis held Mary’s hand tightly but the young queen refused to look away. “No obvious cause of death. She didn’t choke, she didn’t ha
ve any kind of fit, and there is no evidence of illness that I can see. I can make neither head nor tail of it. She just died.”

  “She didn’t just die,” Catherine said, wringing her hands. “No one just dies. I have spoken with the servants and the only thing this girl did differently yesterday was to take food to your guests.”

  Even though Mary had known in her heart that the accusation was coming, she felt as though she had been punched in the stomach. It couldn’t be, there was no way.

  “By all accounts, she took supper up to the south tower, came back to the kitchens, and then went to her bed. When the other servants who share her room went to wake her this morning, she was dead in her bed,” Catherine went on, casting a pitying look at the dead girl. “No one has any reason to lie about this. As far as I can tell, none of the other servants bore ill will toward this girl. In fact, they seemed quite heartbroken.”

  “But why would Alys kill her?” Mary asked, staring at the dead body in front of her. “Even if it were possible, what could she have to gain?”

  “Why did she kill all those old people in her village?” Catherine asked. “Why cause all those women to lose their babies? Tell me, Mary, is that the kind of risk you want in this castle? Is saving the life of this girl you know nothing about worth endangering unborn children? An unborn heir to the throne?”

  “I’m not pregnant,” Mary said, her voice thick with tears that she would not allow to fall. “But thank you so much for reminding me of the fact.” Francis squeezed her shoulder tightly and gave his mother a warning look.

  “And I think that’s what is clouding your judgment, dear child,” Catherine said kindly, protesting her innocence to Francis with a shrug. “I understand that you want to protect her but if she weren’t a child, would you be fighting so hard?”

  “If she weren’t a child, she wouldn’t need anyone to fight for her,” Mary argued, unconsciously pressing her hands to her belly.

  Catherine gestured for the medic to cover the body, the white sheet wiping the dead servant out of their lives. “You needn’t be involved in this any further,” she said. “Let Francis and me take over.”