Allies & Assassins

by Justin Somper

  “Edvin!” Logan made a grimace. “But he’s only, what, fourteen? How can you possibly have confidence in him and his abilities?” The Poet’s grimace transformed into a grin.

  Jared smiled. “Very funny. And point taken. So Anders was right to put his faith in me. But when am I going to start feeling like the Prince? How long will it take? Will it happen at my coronation when they place the crown on my head?”

  Logan shook his head. “Jared, you are the Prince already. Your coronation will be a glorious moment in our history. People will speak of it for generations to come—you can trust me on that score. As to the matter of when you will truly feel like you are the Prince, who can say?” The Poet’s eyes met Jared’s, as he leaned in confidentially. “You may just have act the part until you can feel you truly inhabit it.”

  Logan reached over and picked up the speech script back into his hands. “You may not think these words are written in your voice but you haven’t found your voice yet. I will help you to find it, just as I helped Anders before you.”

  The Poet looked suddenly very tired. Jared felt pangs of guilt. “You’ve been such a support to me today,” he said. “Both practically and emotionally. I really couldn’t have gotten through the past twelve hours without you.”

  “Of course you could have, your highness.” Logan was quick to brush away the compliment.

  “No, I couldn’t. I’ve learned more about the Princedom in these past twelve hours than in the past twelve years.” He stared into Logan’s eyes. “I know how much my brother depended on you. After today, I understand that all the better. I know how close the two of you were, Logan, but you have had to put your own feelings on hold to take care of me. I’m sorry.”

  Logan seemed initially to be at a loss for words. “You’re a very kind person, Prince Jared. And you’re right. There was a close bond between your brother and me. I’m going to miss him very much. But, at times like these, perhaps the best thing is to keep busy.” He paused. “I’ll have time enough to contemplate my loss once the business of the next few days has passed.”

  The Poet fell silent again. Filled with renewed purpose, Jared retrieved the speech from his companion’s hands and strode purposefully toward the dais.

  “People of Archenfield,” he began once more. This time, Logan smiled encouragingly and gave a nod and, as Jared continued with the Poet’s fine words, it was as if he had suddenly discovered a new language. It felt as thrilling and as exhilarating as if he had opened his arms and found he was now able to fly.

  He was interrupted by the door to his rooms creaking open.

  “The Captain of the Guard,” announced Hal Harness, stepping outside again as Axel swept into the chamber—his face a coalescence of elation and exhaustion. In his right hand, he clasped a roll of parchment.

  “Apologies for the interruption,” he said, coming to a stop between the dais and the row of chairs. “I know you are busy preparing for tomorrow but I have important news to share with you both.”

  Before Jared could move or ask what he meant, Axel continued, his tone darkly triumphant. “I have solved Prince Anders’s murder.”

  “You have?” Jared felt a fresh shiver of emotion move through him. “So soon?”

  “We had to move fast,” Axel asserted. “And we have done so. The assassin’s name is Michael Reeves—at least that’s the name he goes by in Archenfield. He works as a steward, right here in the palace. That’s how he was able to poison Prince Anders’s food.”

  Jared heard the words but struggled to absorb them. He realized he was still reeling from the news of his brother’s death. It seemed too soon, somehow, to shift his focus from Anders’s murder to his murderer. But Axel was unrelenting. “Reeves is originally from Paddenburg. He came here long before the current tensions. I’m afraid he must have been a sleeper.” Seeing Jared’s puzzled expression, Axel elaborated. “An enemy agent who has been given time to settle in our state while he awaits instruction for his mission.”

  Jared suddenly felt breathless, as though a boulder was crushing his insides. “So you’re saying there was a long-term plot to assassinate my brother?”

  “It would appear so. I’m very sorry, cousin. I know this can’t be easy to hear.”

  Jared’s hand made a fist, his knuckles white. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to remain standing on his own two feet unsupported.

  Logan spoke next. “If Paddenburg is behind this plot, what are you planning in terms of a revenge attack? Is it something we should be factoring into Prince Jared’s address tomorrow?”

  Jared felt a fresh flush of panic. Just as he was coming to grips with the Poet’s words, was Axel about to fundamentally change the script? Would he have to tell the people that on the second day of his reign, he was taking the Princedom to war?

  Axel turned to address the Poet. “I don’t think the Prince should refer directly to Paddenburg or a revenge attack in his address. Keep it broad-brush while we consider our options and continue the investigation. What he can say is that the assassin has been apprehended and that the Blood Price will be paid.” He paused. “I think that’s what the mob needs to hear, don’t you?”

  Logan nodded, already reaching for his bundle of papers and making notes. “Yes. Yes, I agree. It’s easily done.”

  Axel lifted the roll of parchment in his hand. “I have the death warrant here.” He began walking toward the dais. “Prince Jared, I just need your signature.”

  “Has he confessed?” Jared asked, as his cousin presented him with the warrant, and pointed out the two places where his signature was required.

  “There can be no doubt it was him,” Axel said, with utter confidence. “The postmortem report confirmed that your brother was poisoned, and that the most likely means of transmission was through his food. To poison Prince Anders, and Anders alone, the poison had to be added to his plate after it had left the kitchens. It’s the stewards, as you know, who carry the plates from the kitchen to the dining hall. When we rounded up the stewards for questioning, one was missing. We apprehended the dirty fugitive in the forest. Within spitting distance of the Paddenburg Gate.”

  “Why?” Jared asked, as Logan handed him a pen. “Why did he go there?”

  “To cross the border, of course,” Axel said. “It’s possible that he had an accomplice on one or other side of the gates. Jonas and I have search teams stationed at key locations within the forest. The traps have been activated. If there’s another assassin out there, he or she doesn’t stand a chance.”

  “That’s some comfort,” Logan said.

  Jared’s fingers closed around the neck of the pen, glancing up at his cousin. “You really think there could be another assassin?” He froze. “If there is, then this one will still be coming for me.”

  Axel nodded. “It’s possible.” There was nothing reassuring in the words he spoke or his tone of voice. “I tried to get it out of the suspect but he refuses to talk. Which only makes me more certain that he is an enemy spy whose part in this plot is successfully concluded. He’ll have been trained not to crack under pressure. And, believe you me, I have applied quite considerable pressure.”

  “I have no doubt of that” Jared said. “He really won’t tell you anything?”

  A shake of the head. “He seems intent to go to his death as some kind of martyr.” Axel’s eyes met Jared’s. “It’s all under control, Prince Jared.” He tapped the warrant. “All you have to do is sign your name. Leave the rest to me.”

  Jared’s pen nib hovered above the parchment. “You are in absolutely no doubt that this man is my brother’s assassin?”

  “None whatsoever. I forgot to mention before that we found a book of poisons in his quarters, stolen from the Physician’s private library. Evidently, he tried to hide it under his mattress before fleeing to the forest.”

  “A book of poisons?” Logan said. Jared realized that the Poet had risen from his chair and was now standing beside the Captain of the Guard.

  “A b
ook of poisons,” Axel confirmed. “With ugly little scribbles and greasy fingerprints all over it.”

  Jared’s hand began to shake. It was too much to take in. He could feel each shock he had experienced during the course of that day reverberating in his mind and body. The pen slipped from his hand and fell to the floor.

  As the Poet knelt down to retrieve it, Jared felt Axel’s hand firmly grip his arm. “I’m so sorry. If there was anything I could do to shelter you from this, I would. You need to get some rest, cousin. Put an end to this day of horrors with a good sleep.” The words hit home.

  Logan rose up and extended the pen toward him. Jared found himself trembling again. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “After everything you’ve told me… after what that… traitor cold-heartedly inflicted on my brother, why can’t I commit him to death? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just sign my name?”

  Axel looked to Logan for support. Logan nodded. “As your cousin says, it has been a long and difficult day. For all of us who knew and loved your brother, but above all for you. Your mind is still racing to catch up with everything that has happened, with everything that has changed. But the ordeal is almost over. If you just sign the warrant, Axel can set the necessary action in motion—“

  Axel cut him off, impatiently. “Your brother’s killer will be put to death at sundown two nights from now. As ordained by Father Simeon and his predecessors, the prisoner will have two days and two nights to make peace with his tortured soul.” His tone turned nastier. “Of course, if it was up to me, we’d do it right here, right now—with a rusty blade.”

  Jared turned back to Axel. “How will you kill him?”

  “Beheading,” Axel answered coolly. “It’s the most efficient way, Morgan tells me. My only regret is the bastard won’t suffer for very long.”

  Jared’s eyes sought out the Poet’s once more. “You think I should sign, don’t you, Logan?”

  The Poet nodded. “You said it yourself. This man cold-heartedly planned and executed your brother’s death. The Blood Price must be paid. Archenfield demands it. Your family demands it. Your brother…”

  “All right,” Jared said, needing no further persuasion. He seized the pen and swiftly inscribed his signature in the two places required. It was only as he returned the pen to the Poet, he noticed how he had signed his name.

  Jared, Prince of All Archenfield.

  After a day of body blows, seeing those four words before him—in indelible black ink—was in certain ways the greatest shock of all.

  Jared had woken up a mere mortal. He was going to sleep in command of the Princedom. And sending his brother’s killer to his death.

  DAY TWO

  FIFTEEN

  The Physic Garden

  ASTA FELT THE EARLY MORNING SUN ON THE back of her neck as she unlocked the door to the walled Physic Garden. Once inside, she closed the door behind her. Now she was surrounded by its four high stone walls. Opposite was the only other entry or exit point—the door that led to the walled Kitchen Garden, of equal dimensions, on the other side.

  It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. Uncle Elias was meticulous, bordering on obsessive, when it came to labeling his plants. Before long, she was crouching on the gravel path, bending down before the blue-green shrub named savin. It looked innocent enough, thought Asta. Boring even. It certainly wouldn’t have drawn her eye had she not been looking specifically for it. And yet, this innocuous-seeming plant harbored a dark power. Every part of it was deadly.

  Even from where she crouched, she could smell its bitter leaves. If this was indeed the poison used to take Prince Anders’s life, it must have taken some work on the assassin’s part to disguise its pungent taste. But, Asta reminded herself, savin was only one of the two possible poisons referred to by Elias in the postmortem report.

  Of the two poisons, savin would have been harder to get a hold of, Asta knew. It was not native to Archenfield and, according to Uncle Elias, this one shrub in the Physic Garden was the only plant in the Princedom. If savin had indeed been employed to assassinate their Prince, Asta could well understand why her uncle felt distinctly nervous about the presence of the plant in his own garden beds.

  Access to the garden was prohibited. The most straightforward way in was via the path from the back of the Physician’s House, through the door that Asta had earlier unlocked. But there was only one set of keys for the door, and Asta and her uncle were the only two people with straightforward access. That didn’t get her anywhere. Asta knew that her uncle could not possibly be involved in Prince Anders’s murder. Could someone have temporarily stolen her uncle’s keys to unlock the door? To do so, they would have to be very familiar with the layout of the Physician’s House and the place where he kept his keys.

  Asta glanced across at the other door. Was it possible that someone had come into the garden from that direction? According to Elias, the door between the two gardens was kept locked at all times and, again, only he possessed the key. There were, he explained, very good reasons for this. In the event of a medical emergency at the palace, the route through the two gardens provided a shortcut from the village. The time saved could, he had told her, make the difference between life and death.

  Could anyone have entered the garden other than through the two doors? Glancing up at the height of the walls, Asta shook her head. It might just have been possible if the walls had been covered with ivy or some other plant thick enough to cling to as an ascent and descent was made. But all four walls were, intentionally, bare on both sides. The only realistic way over the top would be by means of a high ladder and Asta couldn’t conceive how anyone could have propped a ladder against the outside of the wall, whether during the daytime or after nightfall, as one of the palace patrols would have been sure to notice and investigate this activity.

  No, she decided, if someone had come to harvest a sprig of savin, with dark intent, they must have used her uncle’s keys. The thought led Asta in a difficult direction. Though all and sundry, from the court and the settlements, had access to the Physician’s surgery, only a very small circle of trusted colleagues enjoyed the same access to the Physician’s House and garden. In effect, it came down to the Council of The Twelve. And it was unthinkable, wasn’t it, that one of them could have done this?

  Why would one of the Twelve want to kill the Prince?

  Asta turned her eyes back to the savin bush. Like the rest of the court, she was still in shock from the arrest the night before of the steward, and the story now circulating that he was guilty of poisoning the Prince’s food. The case against him had been well constructed but, to Asta’s way of thinking, it didn’t quite add up. For a start, there was no way the steward could have come into the Physician’s House, her own new home, unnoticed and borrowed her uncle’s keys.

  Asta thought once more of the discussions she and Elias had had, over the supine body of the dead Prince. The two poisons Elias had named triggered certain similar effects. In particular, both could have caused the gangrene she had seen on his feet. The case for savin was strengthened by the fact that the Prince had, according to Silva, suffered from convulsions and vomiting before he died. On the other hand, Silva had also told them that in his last hours, the Prince had experienced vicious hallucinations of wild animals stalking his bed and blood running down the palace walls. Such vivid fantasies might certainly have been caused by ergot.

  Asta kept weighing up in her mind the properties of the two substances. From what she had gleaned from her research, savin was a relatively fast-acting poison—capable of bringing about death in a matter of ten hours—whereas ergot was slower acting, and more likely to be fatal if administered on a cumulative basis.

  These thoughts swirled around her mind, leading her up all kinds of dark alleys. Was it possible that a combination of the two toxins had been used? Then again, much of the information on which they had based their conclusions came from Silva. Was it possible that she was not telling the whole truth
? The very thought felt treasonous. Asta thought of her own conversation with the Prince’s widow and Silva’s fear that the poison had not been destined for Anders at all but for her. As Asta now knew, savin had powerful abortive properties. So it was still entirely possible that the Prince had been killed by accident and that the assassin hadn’t intended either Anders or his consort to die—only the royal couple’s unborn child.

  Shaking her head again, trying to break free from this maelstrom of thoughts, Asta kneeled down to inspect the shrub more closely from its tip to where the roots disappeared into the loamy Archenfield soil. Doing so, she could barely believe her eyes. Close to the base of the plant, she could see that one of the branches had been neatly snipped away.

  As her pulse began to race, Asta told herself that the small snip was not conclusive proof. Uncle Elias had said that he’d not used the plant as a remedy for a long time now, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t taken time to prune it. But Asta knew that when you pruned a plant—certainly when he’d instructed her on how to do so—you were supposed to take off an even number of branches on either side, to keep it in balance. Asta looked more closely for signs of further cuts but found none.

  She was torn—she wanted to go and wake Uncle Elias to share her latest thinking with him, but at the same time, she knew he was opposed to her conducting her own investigation into the murder. It is not for us to contemplate who was the intended victim or what provoked the attack. My job is to establish cause of death… He had been very clear. But wasn’t that all she was trying to establish too—what had caused Prince Anders’s death and who was responsible?

  It was vital to pinpoint the true path of the events that had led to Prince Anders’s assassination. Doing so would not only solve this murder but also prevent further attacks on the court, attacks that might already be in the planning stages. In the first instance, uncovering the truth might exonerate Michael; but Asta knew that the ultimate effect of her investigation could be to save Prince Jared’s own life. Such thoughts made her all the more determined to pursue the truth, wherever it led her.