She had her suspicions. She thought them well-founded, but had no proof. She wondered how Rodulf would react to having them put to him. Even if it was untrue, so serious an accusation would have to grab his attention. Not knowing where it came from would surely play on his mind. Given enough time, it might have more pronounced effects—paranoia, distraction, fear. She smiled to herself, the first time she had done so in weeks. Even if it didn’t work, the thought of getting into Rodulf’s head was fun.
She tore a sheet of paper from her notebook, and wrote a single line in as unidentifiable a hand as she could. Satisfied that it was enough to get the ball rolling, she turned her thoughts to how it might be delivered without it being traced back to her.
ADALHAID WATCHED Rodulf as he moved through the palace like a snake through the grass, one hand casually stuck in the pocket he had on his tunic. He probably thought it made him a trendsetter, with them not being in common fashion, but Adalhaid thought it only made him look foolish.
Even for one so avaricious as Rodulf, his rise had been preternaturally swift. She could admit that he was smart and ambitious, but even so, there were too many obstacles to such a fast advancement through the ranks, and too many powerful and jealous noblemen to allow even the brightest to rise so quickly to their detriment. It would have been a mystery if Aethelman had not revealed the secret to Rodulf’s success.
She wondered where he kept the Stone. There would surely be few occasions when something so important was not on his person. But one of those times was when she would have to strike. It meant being vigilant, and carrying the knife with her constantly. She had already delayed too long, and needed to make Aethelman’s task her priority. All the hurt she had experienced in life had Rodulf at its core, and it was past time to strike back at it.
She wondered if losing the Stone would be the ruin of him, or if he would find a way to slither back to the top without it. There was only one way to find out. If the Stone didn’t knock him off his perch, it wasn’t the only thing the knife could cut open. The thought of doing harm usually sickened her, but the idea of killing Rodulf provoked no response. That frightened her almost as much as the prospect of having to get to the Stone.
She watched Rodulf greet men who until recently had considered themselves too far above him to even acknowledge his existence, as though he were handing out benefices. That they seemed grateful for the attention was sickening. It occurred to her that after she struck against Rodulf, she would have to flee the city. If she succeeded in destroying the Stone, he would use his considerable power to have the culprit hunted down and killed. If the knife found its way into Rodulf’s withered heart, then the authorities would arrest her for murder. Either way, her time in Elzburg would be over. It pained her to leave with so much undone. She would be abandoning everything she had worked so hard for, and she didn’t know if she had it in her to start all over somewhere else.
She wondered how Jakob was doing, starting again on the other side of the sea. It struck her as odd the way life turned and twisted through the mists of time. Had she not met him, she would likely never have turned to medicine, nor given a voice to her gift. The truth was that, although she felt bad about the way she and Jakob had parted, she didn’t miss him. He was handsome, charming, kind, brilliant—everything a woman could want in a man, and for a time she had thought it might be what she wanted too. However, she could see now that she’d only been looking for a replacement for Wulfric, which was foolish. It was hard to see the experience as anything other than her having thought she was more grown up and well-adjusted than she actually was. There was no use in continuing to chastise herself over it, however. She felt impatient to begin her quest to find Wulfric, and she hoped a Northlander in a foreign land would not go unnoticed. He was sure to bring fame to himself as a warrior, and the more he did, the easier it would be to find him. It might take years, but there was a chance, and she realised a chance was all she needed.
First, though, she had to fulfil her promise to Aethelman. The energy and hope that the idea of seeking Wulfric out had filled her with was dampened by the thought of Aethelman’s task. It was dangerous, and she had no idea how she was going to complete it, let alone survive.
ELSA BLUSTERED into the clinic with a stack of files in her arms that reached up to her nose. Adalhaid raised an eyebrow at the size of it.
‘I don’t think you need to read every patient file right away,’ Adalhaid said. ‘We’ll probably never see some of them again.’
‘They’re not patient files,’ Elsa said, sitting down at the opposite side of the desk to Adalhaid, who was doing some paperwork of her own. ‘They’re student files. That old cow Kengil is making me take on tutorial groups as payment for giving me the clinic. She’s also making me administrate breaking them up into groups and dishing them out to the other tutors.’
‘I take it you’re a fan of the good professor then?’ Adalhaid said.
Elsa humphed. ‘I doubt very much that she has any.’
‘Agreed,’ Adalhaid said, hoping she hadn’t said too much. She had only known Elsa a few days, not nearly long enough to trust her, however nice she might seem.
‘If you’re done with that and have a bit of time to spare, I’d appreciate some help.’
Without the Markgraf’s children to look after, in the evenings Adalhaid was free. She couldn’t stomach spending idle time at the palace—there was nothing for her there but her thoughts, and the problem of how to take the Stone from Rodulf. She smiled and nodded.
‘These are all the students who want to go for the next set of final examinations,’ Elsa said. ‘I need to make sure that they’ve all logged enough clinic hours to go forward for the exam. There’s bound to be a few that haven’t. Always a few chancers hoping they’ll slip through the net.’ She divided her pile of files in two and slid one across to Adalhaid.
‘How many hours do you need to go forward for the final exam?’ Adalhaid said.
‘Two hundred,’ Elsa said. ‘Keep an eye out for duplicate dates on their time sheets, and any hours that haven’t been signed off on.’
It occurred to Adalhaid that she had already accrued well over a hundred hours, perhaps even the full two hundred—it had been some time since she last tallied her hours. Without many friends or anything resembling a normal student’s social life, she had spent some time there nearly every day since Jakob had taken her on. An average student only did a day a week at the most—and judging by the senior students who scrambled to get extra hours when the exams were drawing near, not even that much in many cases. It was odd to think that she might have satisfied one of the requirements to qualify already. When starting off, training to be a physician had seemed like such a long road. Now she was at one of the major milestones.
ADALHAID’S MIND wandered as the lecturer droned on. She had pre-read the lecture topic, and he wasn’t saying anything she did not already know. She also suspected his point of view was not up to date, and had ceased to pay attention.
Her thoughts were on her conversation with Elsa the previous evening about clinical hours being the only prerequisite to sitting the final examinations. Challenges had always attracted her, and now that the idea of taking the final exams at the next sitting was planted in her head she could not get it out.
Elsa had said you could apply to sit them whenever you wanted, so long as you had completed the required clinical hours, but that did not make it fact. She would have to check the university regulations to make certain. If it was even permissible, it would still be a very difficult thing to pull off. Few were able to pass without four or five years’ study, but no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that it was impossible, she could not. She learned quickly, and had a natural affinity for the subject. Of course, her ability with magic helped even more, but she was still determined to ignore that save for the most exceptional circumstances.
She had checked that morning to confirm that she had completed the clinical requirements—it was on
ly the fear of taking on something that very few people managed to achieve that was holding her back. People did it, though. She had asked around and discovered that someone managed it every few years. Why not her? She wouldn’t allow herself be held back by fear. If she destroyed Rodulf’s Stone, she would have to leave the city with nothing. By doing the exams, she would delay fulfilling her promise by a few weeks; but if she succeeded she’d leave the city with the chance of a decent career ahead of her. Failing would be no different to not taking the exams at all. What did she have to lose? She felt foolish for even hesitating.
She gathered up her notes and books and stuffed them into her satchel, then stood and walked out of the room under the gaze of a bewildered professor. If she was going to pull it off, she couldn’t afford to waste time learning at the pace set for her peers.
CHAPTER 6
Rodulf took an office on the opposite side of the corridor from the Markgraf’s. It was a similar size, the furnishings of a similar quality, and only the view—looking out toward the old citadel behind the palace—could be considered inferior. It kept him in close proximity to the Markgraf, and made a clear statement to anyone who might think of defying him.
He could see that his demonstrations of power might have seemed the facile efforts of a small man trying to make himself appear big, but he understood the way people thought. If they regularly saw him involved in decisions and giving orders, they would come to expect it. The longer this went on, the more integral to the fabric of their society he would be, and when it came to accepting him as their new ruler the jump would not be so great. It was a small thing in and of itself, but he needed all the minor effects to add up if he was going to make his plan work.
He sat at his desk, looking out the window at the imposing walls of the citadel, and allowed himself a moment to wonder what the villagers of Leondorf would think when he returned there a king, master of all he surveyed. So many had died in the years of strife, but plenty remained, plenty who had turned their backs on him when he lost his eye and was denied his chance to become a warrior. What a petty matter that was, the chance to swing a sword in the name of a miserable little speck of a village of which no one a hundred miles away had even heard. King. Now that was an achievement. He allowed himself a smile, but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
His clerk showed Grenville through. Despite his fine clothes, he still wore his beard shaggy and hair unkempt, and looked far more suited to campaign clothes than his court ones. Indeed, he looked more like a Northlander than the southerner he was. It didn’t change the fact that he was as sharp as a tack, however, nor that he knew exactly where his coin came from, and showed the appropriate respect and loyalty.
‘My lord,’ he said, doffing an imaginary hat as he came in.
‘What news from Brixen?’ Rodulf said. He had ordered Grenville to Brixen a few weeks earlier to keep an eye on things for him there. Now that he had gained control over the Markgraf, running Leondorf required only competence and honesty, not absolute loyalty and ability to keep secrets, and could be delegated to a steward, so Grenville’s talents could be employed more usefully.
Grenville sat and brushed imagined dust from his britches. ‘Much the same. Lord Hochmark is causing the princess a good deal of grief. He’s where her focus is. Not here. I don’t think there any suspicions about Elzmark.’
‘As I’d hoped,’ Rodulf said. He had never met Lord Hochmark, a powerful nobleman with lands to the east, but he owed him a debt. With a little luck, the Kingdom of Northlandia would have declared itself independent before she had the first inkling of trouble.
‘She’s still trying to establish a power base beyond Brixen,’ Grenville said, ‘but she hasn’t gotten far. The powerful nobles openly defy her, and even the weak ones are beginning to doubt she can provide strong leadership. They’ve all been waiting for her to marry. Now it’s beginning to look like she won’t, and they’re getting impatient. They’re a bunch of fools, so afraid that the Ostians might march north again that they can’t see she’s perfectly competent, and if they’d only give her the chance and work with her instead of against her, she could really do something.’
‘I don’t want them to give her that chance,’ Rodulf said. ‘The more enemies and opponents she has, the easier my life becomes.’
Grenville nodded. ‘She’s not taking it lying down though. She’s brought a famous warrior to her court in an effort to boost her reputation,’ Grenville said. ‘The fella from all of the stories going around at the moment. Oolfeer, or something like that.’
‘Ulfyr,’ Rodulf said. ‘It’s a Northlands name. It may not seem important, but a man with a reputation like his can make a difference.’ He had a thought for the small displays he made for exactly the same purpose. Having someone like Ulfyr in his retinue would be a huge boost to his status. He wondered how much coin it would take to outbid a princess, but dismissed the idea. There were too many stresses on his purse as it was.
‘Seems to be the case so far. Some of the nobles have already quietened down. I reckon they’re scared shitless of him.’
‘Is he really that terrifying?’ Rodulf said.
Grenville shrugged. ‘I suppose. Wouldn’t want to go up against him myself. Big bastard. A Northlander like you, and he has that look of savagery about him.’
Rodulf frowned.
‘Not that you have a look of savagery about you, my lord,’ Grenville said. ‘But a lot of Northlanders do.’
Rodulf leaned back in his chair and ran his finger along the cleft in his chin.
‘He might boost her reputation,’ Rodulf said, ‘but he can damage it just as easily. The weaker she is, the easier we’ll have it here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If he’s disgraced or exposed as a fraud, she’ll be made to look a fool. I don’t want the nobles thinking they should join this great warrior in giving her support. We need to get rid of him—and by we, I mean you. Keep me informed of your progress.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Work something out. That’s what I pay you for. Have a pleasant trip back to Brixen.’
Grenville nodded, ever the perfect servant, and left. What had seemed like a minor irritation might be a blessing in disguise. A hard blow to the princess’s reputation might be enough to collapse what little support she had. If there were rebellions elsewhere in the principality, it was possible he could bring about his kingdom without so much as a fight.
IT SEEMED to Rodulf that there was a direct link between power and time that had to be spent at a desk. The more of it he had, the more time he spent at shuffling papers with nothing but the austere walls of the citadel outside of his window to look at. He had to admire the Markgraf’s nerve in setting up his plot, as he found it difficult not to tend towards paranoia any time he considered delegating something. In a plan where failure meant losing your head, it was difficult to think objectively.
Rodulf’s clerk came in with a pile of letters, and placed them on his desk before retreating from the room without a word. Rodulf hoped there would be word from Kunler, the mercenary guild master, with an update on the companies he was intending to hire. The sooner they arrived, the sooner he’d have a deterrent against attack should the plot be discovered. And once the troops were engaged, the plan would unfold quickly. He would not be able to keep a concentration of soldiers a secret for long, and his deception of preparing for a campaign in the Northlands would be seen through quickly by anyone with a brain. He hoped the likes of Hochmark would keep the princess looking in the wrong direction for long enough to put it all together.
He opened the letters, and quickly scanned the contents to see if there was anything worthy of closer attention.
One caught his eye; a single sentence on a piece of paper. He could taste bile in his mouth even before he properly read it.
I know what you did.
RODULF’S HEART started to race. He felt hot. Too hot. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he gr
ew lightheaded. He loosened the collar on his tunic and tried to calm himself. The message could refer to anything. However, deep down he knew there was only one possibility. The Markgraf’s daughter.
He stood and started to pace around his office, rubbing his temples. There was no way for anyone to know that he had poisoned the child. He had carried out his plan perfectly. Not even the silly kitchen girl who had delivered the poison suspected anything, or was in turn a figure of suspicion. The stroke of good fortune to be able to pin the whole thing on the old priest from Leondorf had been a gift from the gods—or perhaps the Stone—and he was confident that the old man was accepted as being the murderer. There was no more investigation. Aethelman had killed himself in his cell, proof of his guilt for most. He had thought it dealt with, that he was free and clear, but now this.
He looked at the letter again. The penmanship was devoid of personality, and looked as though it was intentionally simplified to disguise the author. Perhaps he was jumping to conclusions? There were many other things he had done to warrant a letter such as this, although none so severe as the Markgraf’s daughter. There were a dozen cuckolds in the city thanks to him. The husbands were men of means for the most part, more than capable of taking revenge against the man who had given them the cuckold’s horns. If that was behind the letter, there was nothing to worry about. The Blood Blades were more than able to shield him against any act of violence, and he had risen too high to be knocked from his perch by a scandal.
Nonetheless, someone was making a strike against him with that letter, and he would not let that pass. There was no indication of what the person wanted. That would likely follow, once they thought they had frightened him and softened him up a little. With luck, they would give themselves away, and lead him to their door. When he found them, they would be grateful for a death such as Aenlin’s.
The Blood Debt: Wolf of the North Book 3 Page 5