Ontogeny

Chapter 18a

"No! Of course not. I could never do such a thing. Majesty, I assure you that I am not the traitor. I am loyal to you. I would give my life for you. I have no idea why they would think it was me."

"They know it was you. They've shown me the proof." He came closer, his face growing red with rage. "I trusted you. I trusted you with the life of my daughter, and you repaid that trust by, by doing this thing to her. How could you? What crime did I ever do to you?"

"No crime! You have never done me any harm, just as I would never do you any harm, or any member of your family. If anyone wished them harm I would put my body between them and theirs, I would protect them with my very life."

"I have seen the proof, Darniss. The facts speak for themselves. You are guilty. You are a traitor."

Darniss fell to her knees, reached through the bars towards him, her eyes filling with tears. "Your Majesty, please believe me! I would never betray you! I love you as all the Kingdom loves you. I would give my life for you!"

This was pointless, the King realised. The only way to break her out of her protestations of innocence would be to confront her with the proof, and he couldn't do that because the Questioners wanted to do it. He laughed at himself. Who's the King? he thought. Me or them? He stepped closer to the bars, therefore. Close enough for the woman to grasp at the hem of his robe. His guards stepped nervously closer but the King waved them back.

"Mandeville has betrayed you," he said, and was pleased by the way her eyes widened with shock. "We know he was a wizard. He cursed one of my men. Why would he do that if he had nothing to hide?" She could only stare, and he could see that she'd had no idea he'd been a wizard. "Were you infatuated with him? Was that the reason you did it?"

"What? No! We were only friends! If he has committed crimes against the Kingdom, I know nothing about them. Majesty, you cannot condemn me because someone I knew is a criminal."

"Not just a criminal. A wizard. Just the sort of person you'd need to put a blessing on an innocent girl. He prepared a potion for you, and you gave it to my daughter. You, whom we trusted above all others."

She was weeping openly now, her whole body trembling. "Sire, the only thing I am guilty of is a poor choice of friends. Please believe that I knew nothing of his true nature!"

"He has abandoned you, Darniss. The moment he cursed my man, he abandoned all hope of being able to save you. It was an admission of his own guilt, and thereby an admission of yours. We have his description now. If he remains in the city, it is only a matter of time before we pick him up. He will be forced to flee the country, abandoning you. You are alone, Darniss. Alone with your guilt."

"Majesty, please..."

"The Questioners are coming, Darniss. It will go easier on you if you confess now. If you make a full confession..."

"If I make a full confession, what? I'll be spared the hangman's noose? You'll let me retire to a quiet little cottage in the country?"

"I think we both know that won't be happening. You've earned the noose for your actions. The only question is how much, unpleasantness you have to go through first. The Questioners are wizards. They will take away your humanity one little bit at a time, and along with it will go your strength of personality and your loyalty to your true masters. You will regain the naive innocence of the animal you once were and you will tell them everything, no longer understanding the consequences to yourself. Depending on how long you hold out, there may be virtually no human left in you by then. If you have to die, wouldn't it be better to go with the dignity of still being fully human?"

She rose back to her feet, and to his alarm and surprise her face twisted into a snarl of hatred. "You fool!" she said, and Leothan's guards took him by the elbow to pull him back, out of reach of her clawed hands. "You will hang before I do. This is my palace, not yours, and I will live to see our places reversed! It is you who will hang, and I will be there to see it happen."

"What do you mean, your palace?"

"Know my true name, Leothan. I am Darniss Pardew. Granddaughter of Thelmia and Theobald Pardew, fifteenth duke of Marbolia. This is rightfully my palace, and when Carrow is victorious it will be mine again. You can lock me in a dungeon today, but very soon now my titles and properties will be restored. If you are lucky, you may live long enough to see it."

The King stared at her for a moment, digesting this. "Then it was you who put the blessing on my daughter," he said, his face once again growing grim.

"Yes, it was. A simple phial of pond water containing microscopic animal life. Microscopic, but able to hold the blessing put on them by a wizard. I told the truth, by the way, when I said I didn't know Mandeville was a wizard. The phial was given to me by someone else..."

"Thurley," guessed the King. "Who, in turn, was given it by Pettiwell. So it was you who killed him."

"Yes. I would have preferred to have killed your daughter the same way. I am not a cruel person. I would have preferred a quick, merciful death for Ardria, but my masters wanted her to suffer for months, to be a distraction for you. So you would make bad decisions."

The King felt genuine hatred welling up inside him, an emotion that was normally completely foreign to him. He wanted to tear open the door of the cell and strangle her with his bare hands. He stopped himself with an effort of will. If she was Carrow nobility, then she was too valuable as a hostage to harm. They might need her at some stage in the war as a bargaining chip.

He turned to his guards instead. "Those clothes she's wearing won't long survive the harsh environment of a dungeon. See that they're replaced with something more durable. Sackcloth will do nicely, I think."

"I'll see to it, Majesty."

The King then turned and marched out towards the stairs back up to the palace, his entourage falling into place behind him. Darniss watched him go with a sneer on her face and then, under orders from the guard, began stripping off her clothes.