Free The Mirador by Sarah Monette Page B

septad, if you believe the stories, and he knew how to keep ’em where he wanted ’em. So she gave up on him and went after Charles.”
    “Well? What happened?”
    “Ain’t clear,” I said. “Laurence died when Charles had two septads and four, um . . . eighteen. Maybe it was murder. Maybe Amaryllis Emarthia had a hand in it. Seems like Charles didn’t, since they let him on the throne. But he hadn’t reached his third septad yet, and everybody knew he was missing some of the top cards from his deck. Laurence had been careful about the way he set the regency up—and maybe that was Amaryllis’s fault, too. So by the time Charles came of age, his advisors had most of the power, and that’s where the Puppet Kings came from.”
    “What about Amaryllis?”
    “Her and her husband got the boot—not officially because of Laurence being murdered, but you know how that is. I don’t think they ever came back.”
    “But here she is,” Mehitabel said.
    “ If that’s her.”
    “We have a historian. Let’s ask.” She called down to the other end of the crypt, “Antony!”
    “Mehitabel!” I said in a hiss.
    “What? Afraid I’ll wake someone?”
    “You only think you’re joking. And people didn’t get buried down here along of being nice to widows and orphans, you know.”
    “Sorry. I think it was mostly bravado. This place gives me the horrors.”
    Lord Antony reached us. “You bellowed?” he said disapprovingly.
    “Mildmay just told me a very interesting story about a woman named Amaryllis Cordelia who shouldn’t be in here. Is that her plaque?” She pointed.
    Lord Antony turned and read the plaque and said, “How very peculiar.”
    “ Is it her?”
    “The dates are right, and I’ve never come across another Amaryllis in that generation of Cordelii, but not only shouldn’t Amaryllis Cordelia be here, she can’t be. That is to say, she isn’t .”
    “Pray continue,” Mehitabel said and gave me a sidelong smile.
    “My mother is an Emarthia, a very cadet branch, but she was a favorite of old Lord Rodney’s. She spent several summers at Diggory Chase, and took me along two or three times. When I was twelve, I spent the summer doing rubbings in their graveyard—including one of the tombstone of Amaryllis Cordelia Emarthia.”
    We looked at each other.
    “The inscription is the same,” Lord Antony said. “I remember the motto. But someone here apparently didn’t like thinking of her as an Emarthia.”
    “Charles?” I said.
    “He was completely in thrall to her, true enough,” Lord Antony said, “but I’ve never heard that he was particularly prone to melodramatic gestures.”
    “But why is she here?” Mehitabel said.
    “That’s just it,” Lord Antony said. “She isn’t here. She’s buried beside her husband at Diggory Chase.”
    “Then what’s this?” I said.
    He started pacing up and down, scowl black as a thundercloud. “Someone has erected a plaque to the memory of Amaryllis Cordelia—”
    “No, they haven’t,” Mehitabel said. “It doesn’t say anything about her memory. It says, ‘Here lies Amaryllis Cordelia.’ ”
    “It’s a copy of the Diggory Chase plaque,” Lord Antony said.
    “Why?” Mehitabel said. “Why would you copy an Emarthius plaque when you patently want to deny her connection to the Emarthii?”
    Lord Antony opened his mouth to answer her and then closed it. Then he did it again, like a guy trying to force a rusted lock.
    “Look, I know this is stupid,” I said, “but what if it’s the other way ’round?”
    “Riddles, my darling,” Mehitabel said.
    “No, it ain’t. What if the Emarthius plaque is the copy?”
    “But that makes even less sense,” Lord Antony said. “Why would the Cordelii put up a plaque for her before the Emarthii got one up, when she died at Diggory Chase?”
    “Why would they put up a plaque for her at all?” Mehitabel said, and we ran aground again.
    “Only people in this crypt,” I said, “are kings, their