Chapter 6

The First Page of the Death Ledger

For the two hours of the ride back to Lumière along the Harolds' western road, Sion Arden did not once look behind him. There was no need: the hoofbeats of the grey mare followed at a steady distance. The lady handled a horse well. Her hands were light on the reins, she kept an even pace so the mare would not tire, and where the road was rutted she turned her horse's head before Sion did. It was not the riding society ladies did in the park, but the skill of someone who had traveled long roads alone, many times.

At the city gate the two of them parted without a word: the lady bowed her head and turned her horse toward the Crowell manor, and Sion made for the knights' headquarters. Inside his coat was the lady's handkerchief, wrapped around the dregs from the feed trough. A white handkerchief with a small rose embroidered in one corner.

The infirmary in the basement of the knights' headquarters always smelled of herbs mingled with surgical spirits. The physician, Bello, was an old man past sixty who now compounded cold remedies for the knights with the same hands that had once pulled arrowheads on the battlefield. When Sion held out the handkerchief, the old man put on his magnifying lens and picked up the dried leaves inside one by one with a pair of tweezers.

"A horse's feed trough, you said."

"More than two years old."

"The veins are vivid for something that old."

The old man placed one of the leaves on a glass dish and let fall a single drop of water; a reddish tinge seeped from the veins into the water. The old man studied that color for a long while, then brought his nose close and smelled it.

"Madweed."

"Madweed?"

"A plant that grows in the southern marshes. Horse traders call it by another name. Feed it to a horse before a race and its legs go madly fast. But after an hour or so its eyes roll back and it throws its rider. That's why it's banned at the racecourse. If you're caught, the horse is slaughtered and the owner goes to prison."

Sion took out his notebook and wrote down the name. Madweed, southern marshes, horse stimulant, frenzy after an hour.

"What happens to a horse if this is mixed into its feed?"

"Depends on the amount. A little, and its nerves stay on edge for three days or so; it lays its ears back at the sight of any stranger. A lot, and it runs wild that same day."

The lady had said that the last time she went to the stables, the horse had laid its ears back for the first time, and three days after that the Count had fallen. Sion wrote the number three beneath that line in his notebook and circled it.

"Where would one go to obtain this?"

"Go to the southern marshes yourself, or pay a southern horse trader extra. Or someone who knows a bit about herbs might dig it up themselves at the edge of the marsh. It's not a common plant. Nor is it a rare one, either."

The old man took off his lens, folded the handkerchief, and handed it back to Sion, touching the embroidered rose in the corner with one finger.

"Who gathered this?"

"...My fiancée."

The old man's white eyebrows rose slowly, but Sion offered no further explanation and left the infirmary.

That night Adelaide Crowell locked the door of her study, lifted the bottom board of the lowest desk drawer, took out the black leather notebook, and opened it to the first line of the first page. Count Edwin Harold, fall from horse, horse bolted for no reason.

Beneath that line, the small writing she had added bit by bit over the past two years and more was packed close: the weather on the day of the funeral, the list of mourners, even the look in the eyes of Edwin's old mother as she regarded her. After that, the record of the day she had visited those stables was written out separately in a paragraph of its own.

She had a habit of writing everything down, a habit that had begun after her mother died. As a little girl she had been so frightened of her mother's face growing dimmer day by day that she wrote down everything she could remember in a notebook. In time the habit shifted from writing down her mother's face to writing down other things, and over six funerals the notebook's purpose had narrowed to one.

Visit to Harold stables, one month after engagement, fair weather with a west wind, navy riding habit and grey gloves and pearl earrings, scent lavender, the grey mare instead of the carriage, alone without companion. Edwin and the old stablehand present, the black horse Ebony laid its ears back for the first time, mark on the oat sacks changed from blue anchor to red circle, in Edwin's words "better oats." Returned home late afternoon; in the evening the duchess passed the study and asked, "Did you pay your respects properly to the Harolds' old mother?"

Adel read the paragraph three times, then stopped her finger at the last line.

How did the duchess know I'd gone to the Harolds' that day?

That day she had ridden out alone early in the morning and told no one where she was going. She had only asked the stable hand on duty to bring out a horse. Yet in the evening, her stepmother had brought up the Harolds' old mother. At the time Adel had let it pass, supposing her stepmother had heard it from the stable hand on duty at the manor.

The stable hand didn't know where I was going. I never told him it was the Harolds'.

Adel dipped her pen in the inkwell and wrote a new line beneath that paragraph. The duchess knew my destination in advance. From whom?

Beneath that she copied out what the old stablehand had said. The new oats were left by a southern merchant as a sample or sent from the Crowell house, but the old man does not remember for certain.

Set side by side, the two lines had a single thread running between them. Her stepmother had not welcomed her engagements: for Céline's prospects she wanted her stepdaughter married off as soon as possible, yet at the same time begrudged the ducal dowry passing to another house. If a fiancé died, the dowry stayed in the family, and the stepdaughter earned the name "the Lady Reaper." Whichever way one looked at it, her stepmother had nothing to lose.

It's too tidy.

Adel set down her pen and traced one circle with her finger around the rim of the teacup brought up in the evening; the tea had long gone cold.

A story that fit together tidily was usually a story someone had fitted together that way. Society's rumors were like that, and so were the conclusions the City Guard had reached after each of the six funerals. That her stepmother disliked her was no secret, but between disliking someone and mixing a poisonous herb into a horse's feed lay a considerable distance. Whether her stepmother had walked that distance herself, or whether someone had made it look as though she had been pushed along it, could not yet be known.

And what she needed to measure that distance, she did not have in her hands now. The handkerchief had already passed to the knight, and to learn what the plant in the trough dregs was, she needed someone who knew herbs. Noah would have recognized it at a glance, but Noah was gone now.

Adel took from the shelf A Herbal of the North, which Noah had promised to lend her, and ran her finger down the table of contents, but as it was a book containing only northern herbs, there were no plants of the southern marshes in it.

That knight probably knows by now. The knights have a physician.

She closed the book and returned to the first page of the notebook. At the end of the first line, she added one more line in small writing.

Handkerchief has passed to Sir Arden; consider how to recover it.

Having written that sentence, she found it a little absurd: a lady pondering how to get back an embroidered handkerchief. Society ladies would use that as a pretext to write a letter to the knight. Adel was mulling this over when she realized that it truly was the most plausible way, and her pen stopped.

Late in the evening, the sound of carriage wheels came from outside the window, and Adel put the notebook at the bottom of the drawer, replaced the board, and went to the window. Looking down through a gap in the curtains, she saw a carriage bearing the ducal crest standing before the front entrance, and the duchess, who had said she was going to the Marchioness Lambert's salon, stepping down alone. Céline did not get out with her.

As she stepped down from the carriage, her stepmother handed a small parcel to a footman, who took it and disappeared toward the servants' entrance.

Adel closed the curtains, went back to her desk, and lifted the board of the drawer once more.

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