8

The Shadow Queen

“Go away, Peter!”

Agnes leant from the upstairs window, looking down at where he stood in the street, holding Sultan loosely by the reins. Dusk had fallen across the village. Agnes’s father had been a well-to-do merchant, a draper, and the house was one of the very few with two floors.

“Let me in, Agnes,” Peter called up to her, as quietly as he could. Here and there people came and went down the long street, and Peter was wary of them, wanting to avoid prying eyes. In truth, however, they were all hurrying home, eager to be out of the coming night. As so often, the streets of Chust seemed filled with a subtle menace that Peter could not have named.

“I will not,” Agnes said, for the fourth time. “I told you. We have barricaded the doors. And the windows downstairs.”

“Well, open them again,” Peter said, exasperated now.

“No, Peter. Are you mad? It’s getting dark. Go home.”

As if in agreement, Sultan whinnied gently. Peter put his hand out and patted Sultan’s neck to reassure him. There was little he could do. He had ridden to see Agnes, and now she wouldn’t even let him in.

“Agnes,” he tried again. “Agnes, you must tell me that you are all right. I’ve heard a story, that your—”

He stopped, waiting for an old man to hobble slowly by and out of earshot. In that little space of time Peter pondered what Tomas had told him. He didn’t know that he believed what he’d heard, but he wasn’t entirely sure that he didn’t.

“What, Peter?”

“I heard that your mother said…that your…father…Your father has been back to visit her.”

He whispered as loud as he dared, glancing up and down the street as he did so. Agnes’s reply was almost inaudible.

“What of it?”

“So it’s true?”

She glared down at him. Peter was getting cross as well as cold. Why couldn’t she give him a straight answer? He couldn’t believe she seemed so calm about it, but then an awful thought crossed his mind.

“Have you seen him, Agnes?”

For a moment her face softened. She looked away across the rooftops, toward, Peter thought, the church.

“No, I haven’t,” she said, quietly. Almost sadly. “I haven’t seen him. And I don’t know if Mother has, or if she’s just…” She trailed off.

“Agnes, I’m sorry. I want to help you. Won’t you let me in? Let me check that everything’s all right. Can I bring you anything?”

“No, Peter. What could you do anyway? I can manage. I’ve blocked all the doors. I’ve protected the windows. We’ll be all right. You should go away. It’s not safe out there. In the dark. You know what people are saying, don’t you?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper, so that Peter had to strain on tiptoe to catch the gentle words as they fell down to him.

“It’s the Shadow Queen. People are saying she’s back, that she’s coming to make Chust her own. Some people even say they’ve seen her!”

With that Agnes seemed to have scared herself. With a wave of her hand, she indicated that the interview was over.

 

The Shadow Queen.

Peter knew what his father would say about that. All nonsense and tittle-tattle. Nevertheless he suddenly felt very exposed in the lonely village street, with no one but Sultan for company.

He swung his leg over Sultan’s back and wearily headed for home again.