Curse and Crown: Marie and the Mouse King Book 3 Read online

  CURSE AND CROWN

  Marie and the Mouse King: Book Three

  Irene Davis

  2022

  This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

  Curse and Crown © 2022 Bonnie Loshbaugh

  E-edition published worldwide 2022 © Bonnie Loshbaugh

  All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-941633-16-8 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-941633-15-1 (e-book)

  Editing by Sarah Pesce

  Book cover and interior design by Bonnie Loshbaugh

  Published by Skookum Creek Publishing

  Visit the author's website at www.irenedavisbooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For everyone who had to make their own happy ending.

  Chapter One

  I pierce the linen with my needle, sharp as a hawk’s talon, and slide the thread through the tiny space between the warp and weft. Slowly, a wing takes shape, spreading as wide as my thumb across the cream-colored cloth, and the fabric and thread in my hands transform into something new and useful: an embroidered handkerchief.

  The Aschenbrandts’ parlor is full of young women, all of us holding onto the comfortable pattern of the sewing circle even as the other parts of our lives threaten to unravel. A few weeks ago, we could hear the rumble of artillery with the windows shut.

  The front has moved further off from our city since then, and some of those who fled have returned, but we need the distraction of sewing for our hands and stories for our thoughts. It’s too much to always be thinking about what might happen next with the war.

  This morning, Florina Hatt has been telling a tale about a peasant with three sons, each of whom went out to seek his fortune in the world and met an old man who offered them gold, silver, or the chance to learn an art. When Florina finishes, Petra Aschenbrandt lays down her pen and comes to me.

  “Marie, I have something for you,” she says, leaning close to keep her words just between us.

  I look up into her eyes, wide and blue and smudged with nights of restless sleep. I doubt my appearance is any better. The war has changed everyone in the city. We’re all hollow these days. Hollow-eyed, hollow-cheeked, hollow-hearted with missing the men who’ve gone away and missing meals as the supplies into the city grow scarcer.

  I tuck my needle safely into the half-finished handkerchief. “What is it?”

  “Step out with me,” Petra says.

  Laying my needlework aside, I follow her from the parlor into the hall. She leads me to the drawing room. The space is wide and empty, with no party to fill it. The drapes are drawn, but the summer sun and heat seep in anyway, making the air thick and stifling. In the parlor, at least the windows were open for a bit of a breeze.

  “Here,” Petra says, holding out a folded sheet of paper. “This is for you. I got a letter from Ernst, and it was enclosed.”

  I recognize my name on the outside and my brother’s handwriting. It’s unsealed. “I didn’t read it,” Petra says as I take the letter from her.

  From the gleam of curiosity in her eye, I can tell it’s the truth. Still, she suspects it must be something important, or she wouldn’t have called me away from the others to read it.

  I open the paper and read the lines within.

  Carville has given Lang over to the von Kamptz side in an exchange of prisoners. He was worth a marshal, to everyone’s surprise. I know this news will hurt you, Marie, but don’t waste your tears for a spy.

  A spy. Given over to von Kamptz. I stare and stare at the paper, but it doesn’t change its message. My brother has a very neat hand. The letters line up as orderly as soldiers on the parade ground, at complete odds with the chaos of the information they bear.

  I knew Lang had lost Carville’s trust, but I never suspected that Carville would give him over to von Kamptz, especially once he knew the king was Lang’s uncle.

  King Karl killed the rest of his sister’s sons. I don’t expect he will welcome his last nephew with a loving embrace.

  Petra puts her hand on my arm. “Is it bad news, then?” she asks softly.

  At her touch, I realize I’m shaking. My blood has run cold, even on this warm summer day. “Yes,” I say. “It is bad news.”

  It’s a death sentence for Lang. And even worse, it’s not just that he’ll be killed, but that he’ll be killed by the very enemy he’s been working to exact his revenge upon.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Petra asks.

  I shake my head. I don’t want to sit. I want to fly straight to Lang and pull him away from danger—if it’s not already too late. “When did you receive this?” I ask.

  “Yesterday,” she says. “I’m sorry, Marie. I thought it would be a message from your lieutenant.”

  No wonder she had such a sparkle in her eye before. She thought she was giving me a love letter. “No,” I say. “It’s from Fritz.”

  I take a breath and try to settle my thoughts. Ernst must not have written of Lang’s supposed betrayal to Petra, but in all likelihood, someone else in the regiment will find the news interesting enough to pass on. Fritz has made sure that the information reaches me quickly, but Petra is only the first of many who will ask me about it. There’s no point in dissembling.

  “My lieutenant has been traded away to the emperor’s enemies,” I say.

  Petra’s hands fly to her face and she gasps. “Oh no!” she says. “But why?”

  “They think he was a spy,” I say. I know he didn’t betray the emperor’s cause, so the words aren’t too bitter in my mouth. The bitterness is in knowing that Lang wouldn’t have had to expose his connection to von Kamptz if it hadn’t been for me.

  It’s bitter, too, for Fritz to call Lang a spy. He should know that Lang wanted nothing more than for the Grand Army to bring about King Karl’s downfall. I thought that Fritz saw Lang as a friend. Even after all that’s happened, they were still comrades at arms. How quickly people can change their ideas about each other.

  Petra has recovered a little from the shock. “Oh,” she says softly. “I’m sorry, Marie. Truly, I am.”

  She squeezes my arm, and I let her hug me. We’ve never been as close as I am with Trudy, but she is a friend. As she pulls me close, I resolve that one day I will tell her my story, my whole story. There’s not time today, though.

  “Thank you for giving me the message,” I say. “I hope you’ll understand if I leave early today.”

  “Of course,” Petra says. She hesitates, then asks, “Would you like me to fetch your things?”

  I nod with relief. The thought of returning to the parlor with everyone else seems overwhelming right now. I need to concentrate on how I’m going to get to Lang.

  Petra leaves me in the drawing room, and I sink down on one of the chairs.

  I should never have left him—but I couldn’t stay with him in the spring. I didn’t know how to fly yet, and I needed the time over the summer to practice my skills.

  Since the spring, I’ve become adept at using my wings and at traveling back and forth to the dream world. Neither skill will help me find Lang in a von Kamptz dungeon, though. I can only travel through the Kingdom of Dolls to a place that I c
an picture. I’ve never visited anywhere in King Karl’s realm, and I can’t hope to fly so far.

  It’s an impossible situation, but I’ve found my way through more than one impossible situation before. I unfold Fritz’s note again. Don’t waste your tears for a spy.

  On a second reading, it seems less callous and more like a message within the message. My brother knows me well. He knows I won’t sit around and weep, and I certainly won’t weep over Lang being a spy, for I know he’s not.

  The letter was unsealed, even if it was hidden within Ernst’s letter to Petra. Petra might not have read it, but anyone else along the way could have. Fritz wouldn’t have written anything that would get him in trouble as well.

  “Marie?”

  I look up. Petra has returned, with my best friend Trudy at her side.

  “I’ll walk home with you if you want,” Trudy offers.

  I nod, then take my sewing bag from Petra and tuck it under my arm.

  “I’m sorry,” Petra says again.

  “It’s not your fault,” I say. “And I’d rather know, so thank you.”

  Trudy follows me out. We stand under the shade of the apple tree beside the Aschenbrandts’ front door. “Petra told me they say Lieutenant Lang is a spy,” Trudy says. “But that can’t be true, can it?”

  “Of course not,” I say.

  Sudden, swift anger rolls through me. How dare Carville trade Lang away? He should have trusted in Lang’s loyalty. He would have, if I hadn’t gone into the camp and raised too many unanswerable questions. But I wasn’t a von Kamptz spy any more than Lang was. I don’t know if I care particularly for the emperor, but as long as he seeks to crush von Kamptz, I would do anything in my power to assist him and his army.

  But I’m only one woman, and even if the war has come uncomfortably close to my home, there’s little I can do to influence the general, let alone von Kamptz or the emperor.

  “What are you going to do?” Trudy asks. “I know you’re going to do something.”

  “Come with me out of the city,” I say. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do, but I can’t stay within the walls for another minute.

  Chapter Two

  Trudy and I walk together out the eastern gate. The guards give us the usual warnings about wandering beyond the city walls, but we all know that the front is far to the south now.

  The most pressing dangers of the forest are the wild boars and bears, and the count’s hunting parties have already killed most of them. If we happen to find a boar who’s been crafty enough to elude the hunters, or a deserting soldier who’s made it away from the army without being scooped up and returned to the front—well, we’ve been warned.

  As we head away from the city, we pass farm women and small goat carts going the other direction. The Grand Army has requisitioned the horses and the oxen from all the surrounding countryside.

  If I hadn’t left my father’s gelding, transformed into a wooden toy by Lang’s magic, in the dream world, then he would’ve been taken by now. My father would’ve given him up gladly, but we live within the city and don’t miss the horse. For the farming families who’ve lost their livestock, though, I don’t know how they’ll work the fields. A goat can pull a cart, but not a plow.

  Starvation in the coming winter seems a far larger threat than bandits or wild animals in the woods, and Trudy and I aren’t the only ones who’ve started going out into the forest to search for what might feed our families. I’m the only one who hunts with wings and talons, though, and Trudy is the only one who knows it.

  She takes my hand in hers as we walk. “We’re almost to the trees,” she says.

  Almost out of sight of the walls. Almost to where we’ll turn off the path and into the forest. Almost to a place where I can change my shape without anyone seeing it. I glance up at the sky, the deep flat blue that shimmers in the heat, as if it were some brightly glazed bowl overturned above us. I want to fly up and shatter it, let hot shards rain down until there is nothing but cold night.

  I need to be off the dusty ground and up in the air. I need it so badly. My heart aches with worry for Lang, and my head is thick with tangled thoughts. My bones are heavy. As soon as I can take flight, the wind will—

  I stop short so suddenly that Trudy is caught off-balance by our linked hands and stumbles against me.

  “Marie?” she says uncertainly.

  “The wind,” I say. “She promised to tell me. She promised.” I let go of Trudy’s hand and lift my skirts, hurrying into the trees. It would’ve been more convenient if I’d gone home to change into a pair of Fritz’s old breeches, but when I have my wings, it won’t matter. First, though, there’s someone I need to talk to.

  “Southwest!” I call unceremoniously. “Mademoiselle Southwest!”

  I pause in the sun-dappled shadows, listening. I hear my breath, and Trudy’s. The chatter of a squirrel tells the other forest animals of our presence. The air is heavy with the scents of pine sap and dry earth. Warm sweat slides down my spine.

  “Southwest!” I yell again.

  Trudy looks at me, alarm moving over her face. We’re far enough away from the road that no one will see me transform into a hawk, but not so far that no one will hear me yelling for the wind and think I’ve taken leave of my senses. “Mariechen,” she begins, but then the warm air stirs, and she goes wide-eyed and silent.

  There’s a thunderclap out of the clear blue sky and then the sound and the air coalesce into a young woman. She wears a loose white shift and her curling black hair is unbound. The swirl of hair doesn’t hide the annoyance on her wide face, though.

  “Well?” says the Southwest Wind.

  “You promised to tell me if any harm came to Dietrich Lang,” I say. I should curb my emotions, but Lang is in danger, and that’s worth annoying the winds for. “He’s been taken prisoner by his uncle, and the news has come to me by letter from my brother. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She draws her dark brows together. “But no harm has come to him,” she says. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Have you seen him? Where is he?”

  The Southwest Wind shifts on her feet. In a human, I might think the movement a nervous one, a sign that she is less than truthful, but she is a wind. She simply cannot be still. “I have seen him,” she says. “He is unharmed.”

  “King Karl will kill him,” I say. As soon as I say it, the anxious fear I’ve been resisting since I read my brother’s note bursts open in my chest. It squeezes my heart and coils around my lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t think of Lang as anything other than alive. It hurts too much, and I want to flee from the pain.

  I turn away from the wind and bend my legs, looking to the sky. I will fly and fly, crisscrossing every land in this world until I find him.

  “Marie! Wait!” Trudy grabs my arm before I can jump into the air.

  I settle back onto the ground, but the fear still grips me. What will King Karl do to Lang? I have to get to him, but what if I can’t find him until it’s too late? What if it’s already too late?

  Trudy takes my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her. “Marie,” she says. “You’re panicking. I’m going to count, and you’re going to breathe with me.”

  The world has gone black and fuzzy around the edges, but Trudy’s blue eyes are bright and calm before me. “In, one,” she says slowly. “Out, two.”

  She counts, and I breathe. My heart slows, and I can see the forest clearing around us again. The Southwest Wind is watching us, her face smooth and unreadable.

  “You saw Dietrich Lang,” I say to her when I feel steady enough to speak. “Where was he?”

  She tilts her head to one side and purses her lips briefly. “He was with King Karl,” she says. “But you already know that. Why does it upset you so?”

  I take another deep breath and remind myself that she isn’t human. She and her wild siblings don’t seem to understand the kind of emotions that make a whirlwind inside my chest. “Because it will be
the end of his story.”

  The Southwest Wind opens her mouth and laughs. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she says.

  I stare at her, unable to form my reaction into words. Not polite ones, anyway.

  She leans close and pats my cheek, a whisper of cool air running over my heated skin. “There is so much of his story left to tell,” she says. “And yours too.”

  “Can you take me to him?” I ask. The winds helped me travel to the army camp before. They could do it again. But in the spring, I made a bargain with their mother and traded three stories of my life for her assistance. I don’t have a new story now, and I’m not surprised that the wind is already shaking her head.

  “You’re not a fledgling anymore,” she says. “And neither is your lover. You’ll find a way to him, and later you’ll come and tell Mother how you did it. But I won’t take you. None of us will, so don’t bother calling on any of the others.”

  “But do you know where he is?” I ask. “Can you describe it?”

  “No,” the Southwest Wind says. “I can’t tell you.” She smiles, her mouth just a little too wide. Her face is so close to mine that I should be able to see my reflection in her pupils, but I can’t. There is only darkness at the center of her eyes.

  A chill goes through my body, and I’m the one who steps back.

  “When you have a tale for Mother, we can take you to her,” she says. “If you don’t finish it yourself, we’ll tell her what we can. That is what we offer.”

  I swallow hard to clear the dryness in my throat. “Very well,” I say. “Thank you for your information, Mademoiselle Southwest.”

  “We’ll always be with you when you fly,” she says. “And I wish you luck, Marie Stahlbaum.”