Staff & Crown Read online

  Staff & Crown

  Two Monarchies Sequence

  Book Three

  For all those readers who loved Melchior as much as I did.

  By W.R. Gingell

  Spindle (Two Monarchies 1)

  Blackfoot (Two Monarchies 2)

  Staff & Crown (Two Monarchies 3)

  Masque (Two Monarchies)

  Twelve Days of Faery (Shards of a Broken Sword 1)

  Fire in the Blood (Shards of a Broken Sword 2)

  The First Chill of Autumn (Shards of a Broken Sword 3)

  Shards of a Broken Sword: The Complete Trilogy

  Lady of Dreams

  Lady of Weeds

  Wolfskin

  Playing Hearts

  A Time Traveller’s Best Friend

  Memento Mori (A Time Traveller’s Best Friend 2)

  Ruth and the Ghost

  ~O~

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  ~O~

  Staff & Crown

  Copyright 2018 W.R. Gingell

  All rights reserved

  Published by W.R. Gingell

  wrgingell.com

  Cover by Seedlings Design Studio

  1

  Three years, thought Annabel, was a curious amount of time. It had seemed like a long time when she was looking at it from the beginning of those years, but now that she was nearly at the end of them, she didn’t find them to have been very long at all.

  Now it was more natural to think of it as just three years. Just three years ago, an enchanted castle had appeared to save Annabel and her best friend Peter from being killed by the rogue wizard Mordion. Just three years ago, her talking cat Blackfoot had led her a merry dance around that castle. And just three years ago, Annabel had been dismayed and surprised to discover that she had, in fact, passed a test designed by the ancient wizard Rorkin to select the next queen of New Civet. And then there was the fact that her cat Blackfoot turned out not to be a cat after all…

  If it was unpleasant to be chased around an enchanted castle by a murderous wizard and led astray by the wiles of the castle itself, it was much worse to find out that she was the heir apparent to New Civet’s throne. More importantly, when Annabel, Peter, and Blackfoot finally escaped castle, they had found themselves three years in the past, the castle gone again as mysteriously as it had come back.

  Those three years before the castle returned and everyone found out that Annabel was the heir should have been a reprieve. A chance to learn things she desperately needed to learn, and for Blackfoot to make the kind of arrangements a spy-turned-cat-turned-man needed to make for the installation of a lost heir.

  But if Annabel looked at it in another way—and these days, she found that she did look at it in another way—there was a distinct feeling of despondency to her thoughts. Part of that despondency could be put down to the fact that Annabel would be on her way to Trenthams’ Finishing School within the week, and part of it could have been because that would mean not seeing Blackfoot and Peter for a whole half year. But the main cause of that despondency was almost certainly the fact that her three years were nearly up—and that, in less than half a year, the castle would return and Annabel would be officially recognised as the queen heir. She would actually be crowned within the year, when her time at Trenthams Finishing School was over. Nineteen years old was certainly too young to be crowned queen.

  Annabel sighed. The only other occupant of the room, a slender, black-dressed individual who was reading over a letter and pretending not to notice anything but the letter, said without raising his head, “It’s no use sighing at me. Your little friend can come back when he’s learned some manners.”

  “I’m not sighing about that,” said Annabel. She’d seen Peter just last month, if it came to that, but she wasn’t about to tell Blackfoot—Melchior—that. Three months ago, Melchior had been annoyed enough to remove Peter from the house by his collar, an indignity that Peter could have obstructed with his very considerable magic powers if he’d chosen, but was too proud to do so. He was almost as tall as Melchior these days, and no doubt he would have liked to think he could best him in a scuffle.

  Annabel found herself grinning and hastily stopped herself. She hadn’t been best pleased with Melchior, either; Peter was a horrible little boy who said rude things that he shouldn’t, but she and he had been best friends for too long to let that stand between them.

  Melchior, on the other hand, had never been particularly good friends with Peter; and now that he had a human form instead of a cat one, he had made very obvious his refusal to allow Peter to speak to Annabel in the way he had been used to do. And despite the fact that Annabel missed Peter, she didn’t think it a bad thing for him to be taught a few manners. It was high-handed of Melchior, but it was his manor after all. So she said, “I’m not sighing about that.”

  “Well, that makes a nice change, anyway,” Melchior said. This time he looked up, and there was a glint to his eye that made Annabel think he knew more than she’d suspected. Confirming that, he added, “Did you have a pleasant heart-to-heart last month?”

  Annabel blinked at him.

  “Don’t try that with me. It doesn’t work. I saw Peter at the Terry party.”

  “He was invited.”

  “So was I, but I didn’t climb through the window.”

  “I think he was sorry.”

  “For what? The way he speaks to you, or being thrown out of the manor? Or was it for bringing up his lofty assumption that you’ll get married one day and telling you off for laughing with other boys?”

  Annabel thought about that. “I don’t know,” she said at last. The Peter she’d seen at the party last month had been a rather raw and pale Peter. He had climbed through the window and dragged Annabel away from the other partygoers before anyone but Melchior had a chance to see him.

  Annabel, rushed into the hall and rather more breathless than she would have preferred to be from a combination of too-tight lacing and a lack of exercise over the last few weeks, gasped out, “What? Peter, you horrible boy! What are you doing?”

  “Ann,” began Peter. He was frowning; and, most unlike himself, he looked as though he was having trouble finding the words to speak. Peter was more inclined to come out bluntly with the first, convenient words that sprang to mind, whether or not they were kind or helpful.

  He looked…older? More worried? Annabel asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Peter laughed, then stopped. He dashed his fingers through his hair as she’d often seen him do. That was frustration and uncertainty. “There’s—there’s something I have to tell you,” he said.

  “Is that why you climbed through the window?” Annabel had visions of Mordion come back to life, the castle torn apart by his escape, and Rorkin somewhere in the length and breadth of time, unable to assist.

  “Yes. That’s why I climbed through the window.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked again.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Annabel blinked. “What?”

  “All right, I know it’s not like me,” Peter said, with attempted dignity. “I’m sorry. Lately I’ve been—Actually, no; I’ve always been awful to you. I didn’t know—Well, I suppose I knew, a bit. But you always just took it, and so I forgot to care about whether or not I was hurting your feelings. Anyway, I’m sorry.”

  “Is this because Melchior threw you out?”

  “What? No. Well, maybe a bit. But someone told me—No, she showed me—”

  “She?”

  Peter flushed dull red. “Never mind. The point is that I didn’t realise how awful I’d been to you, and I’m sorry.”

  It was only by a severe effort of self control that Annabel managed not to laugh. “Wh
o is she?”

  “Never mind about that,” Peter said, this time setting his shoulders. “She’s a quick-tempered madwoman, and I should have stayed away from her. Actually, no—That was my fault too, if it comes to that.”

  “I want to meet her.”

  There it was again. Annabel had spoken lightly, teasingly, but Peter’s face was suddenly stiff and miserable.

  “You can’t,” he said. “I did something—we did something—and you won’t meet her for a bit.”

  “Peter,” said Annabel suspiciously, “have you been playing with your tickerboxes again?”

  “Anyway,” Peter said, ignoring that completely, “I won’t see you for a bit, either. I’m sorry about that. And—and about everything else. I didn’t understand—I didn’t know how it could affect you.”

  “What’s wrong, Peter?” Annabel said sharply. “Really?”

  “I don’t have any time,” Peter said. “And time is—Well, time is pretty important at the moment. I’m sorry, Ann.”

  He actually hugged her. It was the first time he had done so of his own volition, without being injured or sick, and he didn’t let her go for quite some time.

  That was the last Annabel had seen of him, and for the first few weeks afterward, she couldn’t help feeling that he was avoiding her; whether from shame, embarrassment, or some other equally foreign emotion. Then it occurred to her that he had probably gone to visit his mother. The three years before the castle was due to return weren’t quite up, but Annabel was quite sure he had visited his mother before then. She had left him to himself because she was quite sure if Peter knew anything, it was how careful he needed to be when it came to time.

  Now, sitting across from Melchior, Annabel said, “I don’t think we’ll see him for a while yet.”

  Melchior looked at her sharply, and it occurred to her that he knew something when he said, “Ah. I see. Never mind, Nan; you’ll see him again. Hopefully he’ll be a bit better behaved by then.”

  Suspiciously now, Annabel demanded, “What do you know? Have you been talking to Rorkin? Where is he?”

  Melchior grinned. “I haven’t talked to Rorkin since the castle.”

  “What did he say then?”

  “You’re growing up to be a very suspicious young woman, Nan.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t lied to me all the—”

  “Don’t start that again!” Melchior said hastily. “I managed to have a bit of a talk with Rorkin—actually, he managed to have one with me—and I was given the impression that your friend has something he needs to do somewhere else. But you know what Rorkin’s like. It could have been what he wanted me to think.”

  “Yes,” agreed Annabel. Talking with Rorkin was inclined to leave her a little bit dizzy and certain only that anything she thought she knew was likely to be something she was meant to think she knew, and not necessarily true. One thing Annabel was really very sure about, on the other hand, was that the letter at present forgotten between Melchior’s fingers was from Mr. Pennicott, the driving force behind the group who had sent Melchior to find her so many years ago.

  Three years ago, that thought would have prompted Annabel to thought but not to action. Today, she rose without a pang for her comfortable seat by the window and wandered behind Melchior’s sofa, ostensibly to look at the books in the bookcase there. Lately Melchior, who had always curled up on her pillow and in her lap in his cat form, had taken to deliberately distancing himself. Sitting on the sofa opposite instead of the same one, for example, and chiding her when she tried to pat his head as she had used to do when he was Blackfoot the cat. Annabel was quite sure he was receiving more notes, too; and not all of them were from Mr. Pennicott, his employer.

  Annabel leaned her forearms on the sofa back and looked over Melchior’s shoulder, scruffing his hair by reflex. It was also three years since Melchior had been a cat, but the habit of patting his head and tickling his ears had stayed with her. Tugging on his short, dark hair as she’d used to tug on his ears, she said: “Is that from Mr. Pennicott? Do you have to go away again?”

  “Don’t do that, Nan,” he said, batting her hand away. The letter vanished at the same time, though Annabel wasn’t sure if it was purposely or simply a result of fending her off.

  “Why?” she demanded, evading his swipes and ruffling his hair even more vigorously, this time with both hands. “I like patting your head.”

  This time, Melchior moved away entirely, twitching around to look at her. “I’m not your cat any more, Nan.”

  “Yes, you are,” Annabel said. “You’re mine, my cat. You should purr like you used to.”

  “Then it seems rather awkward to mention at this stage that I am, in fact, a man,” remarked Melchior. His thin lips had a rather curious curl to them. “Have you never noticed?”

  “Of course I have,” said Annabel. “You take up a lot more space and you’re not as furry. But it’s still nice to pat you on the head.”

  “Nice it may be,” Melchior retorted. “It’s certainly not proper, however. And for that matter, neither is leaning over the backs of sofas and whispering in gentlemen’s ears.”

  “I wasn’t whispering in gentlemen’s ears!” Annabel protested. “I was talking, and it’s your ear! You were muttering in the back of my mind for five years, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t pat you on the head and talk in your ear now and then.”

  Melchior’s hazel eyes gazed at her for quite some time before he said pleasantly: “I feel I should mention once again that I am no longer a cat.”

  “But I can see that!”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  Annabel, crossly, said, “I wish you’d speak in proper sentences. You’re as bad as Rorkin.”

  “Now there’s an idea,” said Melchior to himself, even more maddeningly incomprehensible. “You’ve always liked cat-me better than human-me, haven’t you?”

  “You are cat-you.”

  “That’s not what you said three years ago,” Melchior said. He was looking very thoughtful, and Annabel wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “Maybe I should have bitten you once or twice.”

  “You did,” remarked Annabel, circling to the front of the sofa and sitting at the other end of it.

  “I can’t imagine why you liked me.”

  “Neither can I,” Annabel said, but she couldn’t help grinning. That wasn’t strictly true. “Anyway, I know you’re you. It was just that at the start—Well, everything was changing, and you know I don’t like change.”

  “I know,” Melchior said, crossing one ankle over the other and leaning against the other sofa arm. “I’m not sure I appreciated how very much you disliked it until lately, however.”

  “Anyway, I got used to human-you.”

  Melchior’s brows rose. “I’ll beg to differ on that head. You’ve never gotten used to me; you’ve simply treated me like a cat ever since you got over being angry at me.”

  “You are a cat,” said Annabel again. “My cat. Anyway, I haven’t been angry at you for a very long time—and that was just because I wasn’t used to you looking like this and it was hard to think of you as the same person.”

  “Now there’s another idea,” murmured Melchior.

  “What idea?” demanded Annabel. She wasn’t sure she was ready for more of Melchior’s ideas. They usually involved a lot of work from her, and even if she was beginning to bestir herself more than she had done in the past, it was still a conscious effort to do so.

  “Never you mind.”

  Annabel made a small pft noise at him. If there was anything more annoying than Melchior talking in riddles and coming up with ideas, it was Melchior talking in riddles and refusing to explain his ideas. Still, she’d been around him long enough to know it wouldn’t do any good to pester him for explanations, so she went to her room instead. Sometimes it was easier to deal with Melchior if you came back to him in the morning when he wasn’t feeling so facetious or pernickety.

  In the morning, h
owever, it was painfully obvious that Melchior was not inclined to be either less facetious or pernickety. He didn’t come to breakfast, and when Annabel looked for him to find out why, he was stalking around his private wing of the manor, trying to fix a top hat spell.

  “Why don’t you just buy one?” she asked, leaning in the doorway to watch.

  Melchior’s eyes flicked over to her and away again. “You’re not supposed to be in this part of the manor.”

  “You said that last time, too,” pointed out Annabel. “Anyone would think you’re hiding bodies here.”

  “You can’t come into a gentleman’s wing.” Melchior narrowed his eyes at the top hat and very cautiously curled the brim just a little more. Annabel might have thought it was part of the spell if she didn’t know exactly how stylish human Melchior liked to be as opposed to cat Melchior. “It’s not polite. What if I was getting dressed?”

  “Then it would serve you right,” Annabel said. “You shouldn’t be dressing with your doors wide open. I don’t bellow at you every time you wander into my hallway and tap on the door.”

  “I should hope not!” Melchior said, turning his head to one side and adjusting the other side of the hat brim minutely. “This is my manor. I refuse to be bellowed at on my own grounds.”

  “Actually,” said Annabel, who was feeling argumentative, “if I’m the queen heir of New Civet, doesn’t all this belong to me by sovereign right? You’re the one who taught me that. So I’m allowed to bellow at you in the manor if I want—it’s my manor. Sovereignly. And if I want to bellow at you in a sovereignly manner, I will.”

  Melchior squinted at his hat. “I thought you were boasting that you’d refrained from bellowing.”