Dark Jenny Read Online Free Page A

immediately by, ‘Are there any apples about?’”
    There was polite laughter at this.
    “Tonight, in his honor we have apples that I picked myself in the royal orchard and brought personally from the palace, so that everyone, including Thomas, might truly know the esteem in which he’s held.” The girl knelt before the queen, who selected an apple and motioned for the honored knight to step forward.
    Gillian was roughly the same age as the queen, with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and the kind of solid, square build that served well in battle. As she handed him the apple, there was a moment of grim, serious eye contact completely at odds with the frivolous situation. It reminded me of the uneasiness I’d noticed earlier in the other knights. Then he lifted the apple to his mouth.
    Just before he bit into it, a ragged cry of pain filled the room. The young knight who’d earlier snatched the apple from the tray fell forward onto the stone floor with a wet, painful smack. He immediately went into violent convulsions.
    With cries of horror, the demure lords and ladies bravely scurried away from him. The veteran knights, as such men will, immediately drew their weapons and looked for the next threat rather than aiding the victim of the last one. Most of the new soldiers followed suit, although several just froze.
    I pushed through the crowd in time to see the young knight stop thrashing and lie completely still in that final, unmistakable way. His eyes were wide-open, and his tongue stuck out between his teeth.
    I knelt beside the man—hell, a boy, with a beard that was no more than a few ambitious wisps and a neck still dotted with pimples. Black foam oozed from between his clenched teeth, and his body had already so swelled so much that his thin show armor could barely contain him. His hand still clutched the apple.
    I pried the piece of fruit from his fingers, careful to use a handkerchief so I wouldn’t touch it, and sniffed. Under the normal juice smell was the distinctive pungent odor I expected. Poison .
    In the silence, a voice I instantly recognized called out, “That man killed a knight!”
    I looked up sharply. Between the pale faces at the front of the crowd, Lord Astamore glared at me with a mean, triumphal grin. “He slipped him some poison! I saw it! Don’t let him get away!”
    “He’s a murderer!” another man cried.
    “Yes, I saw it, too!” chimed in a third voice
    “Now, wait a—,” I started to protest, but suddenly strong hands grabbed my arms and yanked me to my feet. Two Knights of the Double Tarn held me between them, and from the looks on their faces I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I wore no sword, and the knife I always carried in my boot might as well have been on the moon for all the good it could do me.
    Then a third knight, bigger and older than the rest, approached me. I decided he deserved all my attention. He held out his hand for the apple. “I’ll take that.” He wrapped the handkerchief around it and put it in a pocket. “And who are you?”
    Murder was too serious for aliases. “I’m Edward LaCrosse.”
    “There’s no LaCrosse on the guest list.”
    “You know every name by heart?”
    “Yes.” He said it with such certainty I couldn’t doubt him. “So what are you doing here?”
    “Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, apparently.”
    “I’ll decide that.”
    Lord DeGrandis lumbered out of the crowd. His red face contrasted sharply with the yellow frills at his neck. “Why are you standing there? Execute this man!”
    “No one’s getting executed,” the older knight said, “until I get answers.”
    “This is my castle, Sir Robert,” DeGrandis boomed.
    Sir Robert faced him steadily. “Then give some orders.”
    With a wave of his hand, DeGrandis said, “Execute this man!”
    The knights holding me neither moved nor responded.
    “Did you hear me?” DeGrandis said. It came out high, whiny, and desperate. “I’m the chancellor of