The rest of the world would question her maternal feelings, call her unnatural. But Maxen had betrayed her! People would point out the apparent hypocrisy. They would say she had betrayed her husband, which was why she found herself in this tower. But the two betrayals were not the same at all. In her life, she had only ever trusted two people—Fransis and her son. To be betrayed by the only one of them left living could not be borne.
Why couldn’t Fransis have lived? That ridiculous promise she had made to him ruined everything. She had replayed the events of that night over and over again, and she saw clearly that if he had not stopped to extract the promise that she allow him to shoulder all the blame, they would not have been caught. All they needed was to get out of her room, and they would have escaped. The back ways out of the palace lay open to them. Once outside, finding their way down the castle hill and into the city would have been difficult, but they would have managed. Then all they would have needed was a horse on which to ride far away, never turning back, and who would have denied the queen and the captain general a horse?
And if they had ridden away that night, never to return to Myrcia, to live their lives out together somewhere else, she would have never known Maxen. She would not have watched him grow, seen him trying to learn the ways of royalty, witnessed his kindness to her. She would never have grown to trust him, to be in a position to be betrayed by him, to have to kill him.
“Mother! Are you here?”
She focused her eyes in the mirror. At some point, she couldn’t say when, she had stopped crying. With her sleeve, she wiped away the remnants of her tears. “Yes, darling. I’ll be right down.”
Chapter 34
“IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I can get you, father? Anything at all?” Margaret topped off Brandon’s glass of wine, even though Brandon had barely taken a sip of it.
He was slumped down in one of the armchairs by the fire. His daughter had pulled over a little brocaded footstool and perched on it by his slippered feet. Robert, Brandon’s eldest son, paced back and forth by the window, while Philip, the youngest son, knelt by Margaret with a poker in his hand. He had appointed himself the task of tending the fire, just as Margaret had appointed herself barkeep, masseuse, and all-purpose physician.
Mustn’t keep breaking down in front of them. Robert will swear, Philip will be embarrassed, and Margaret will feel obligated to cry, too—more on my behalf than on Hildred’s.
“Who do you suppose did it?” Philip said, as he prodded at the glowing coals once again.
“This isn’t the time for that sort of talk,” Robert said, in his sober big-brother voice.
“Yes it is,” Philip shot back. “This is precisely the time—when we might actually be able to catch the person who did it!”
“I heard the most shocking thing,” said Margaret, pouring herself a glass of wine now. “The Countess of Montgomery said she heard that the queen was responsible. You can imagine where I told her she could stick that notion!”
Brandon very nearly managed to smile. One of Margaret’s most charming eccentricities as a child—one of the things that had most annoyed her Aunt Hildred, in fact—had been her utter fascination with Merewyn. He remembered Hildred berating him for letting Margaret have tea and play cards with the queen. “She’ll start to think that...woman is some sort of tragic heroine!” Hildred had said.
He almost started to laugh at the memory, but instead his chin quivered, and his red, sore eyes started to fill again. Aware that his children were all staring at him, he lifted his glass and finally took a good, long drink, until he had mastered himself.
There was a knock at the door, and Robert hurried to answer it. That was his self-appointed position—doorkeeper to the bereaved. He’d already seen off half a dozen people wanting to offer condolences, bless him. Brandon really didn’t think he could stand hearing “She’s in Earstien’s Light” one more time that evening.
After a few terse, quiet words, though, Robert stepped back, opening the door and revealing Caedmon Aldred.
“I do apologize for intruding on this moment of familial grief,” said the hillichmagnar, bowing. “But I have just spoken with the sheriff, your grace. I thought you might like to hear what he has discovered.”
With a groan, Brandon raised a hand to cover his eyes. “Couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?”
Margaret patted his foot. “No, father. Philip is right. The sooner we know what’s going on, the sooner we can figure out who killed Aunt Hildred.” She stood, and in a lower, steadier tone, she said, “What have you learned, Lord Aldred? Have you identified the culprit yet?”
“Not precisely, my lady. The kitchen staff are adamant that no one there could have added the poison to the bowls of pistachios without other servants noticing. More to the point, there were two footmen who carried the nuts from the kitchens, and both young men are fond of pistachios themselves. They admit sampling the nuts before they went to the great hall. Both are, of course, still alive and unharmed.”
Brandon sat up a bit straighter. “That means the poisoner had to be right there in the hall, or maybe in the passageway outside.” His mind started racing. “Who was there and could have added the poison?”
“I hesitate to mention it,” said Caedmon. He cleared his throat and continued. “But the housemaids and footmen suggested to the sheriff that he ought to speak with Lady Haley Randal. She insinuated herself into the group of servants who were bringing refreshments to the tables, and her presence seems to have been resented. Regrettably, we have not been able to locate Lady Haley yet.”
“Oh, Haley wouldn’t have done anything,” said Margaret firmly. “She’s the queen’s lady-in-waiting, so blaming her is just another way of casting suspicion on her majesty, which is utterly absurd.”
“No doubt you are correct, my lady. I should also mention that my colleague, Servius Faustinus, has identified the exact poison used. It is terribly powerful, but through the combination of its three ingredients, it degrades quickly. So it must have been added to the food mere minutes before the tragedy.” Caedmon lowered his head and tapped his fingertips together thoughtfully. “I believe that is everything we have learned.”
“Does Faustinus have any idea who the poisoner might have been?” Brandon asked.
Under his thick brows, the hillichmagnar’s eyes narrowed. “Any speculation would be premature, your grace.”
I recognize that look. I’ve seen it dozens of times at meetings of the privy council. Caedmon knows more than he’s telling.
Rising to his feet, Brandon said, “Perhaps I’ll go speak to Faustinus myself.”
Robert volunteered to go in his father’s place; Margaret begged him to “just lie down for a while.” Caedmon suggested a sleeping draught of some kind. But Brandon knew he couldn’t sleep now. He told his children to stay behind, despite their entreaties, and he marched up the darkened stairs to the third floor. Caedmon came with him; Brandon couldn’t very well order him not to.
Faustinus answered his door looking somewhat the worse for wear. His clothing was disheveled and his hair was oddly askew. He had a nearly-empty glass of wine in his hand, too, and his eyes were red, as if he had been drinking heavily.
His eyebrows rose when he saw Brandon, and they rose farther still when he saw Caedmon. “Well, this is an odd party so late at night,” he said. “I’m going to guess this isn’t a social call.”
“Do you have any idea who poisoned Hildred?” Brandon demanded.
“Faustinus,” said Caedmon in a warning tone. “Nothing good will come of speculation about—”
“I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by keeping it to ourselves,” said Faustinus, stepping aside and ushering them in. “I have a very high tolerance for secrecy and lies, but I think I may have reached my limit for one night.”
The door shut, and Faustinus tried to offer them some wine, but Brandon was too nervous now to drink anything, and Caedmon was still trying to dissuade Faustinus from saying anything m
ore.
“You may as well know the truth of what I think,” said Faustinus, cutting off Caedmon again. “Your grace, I believe the person responsible for your sister’s death was Sir Broderick, the captain general.”
There was a small writing desk next to where Brandon was standing, which was lucky, because he had to clutch the side of it to steady himself. “Oh, Earstien,” he whispered. “Oh, Earstien, it can’t be.” Somehow, though, the accusation had the ring of truth. It just feels right. But is that because I’ve never liked the man, or because he really is the murderer?
“Let me remind your grace,” said Caedmon, “that this is only uninformed speculation at this point.”
“Why would he do it?” gasped Brandon, still leaning on the desk.
“I believe it is most likely that he intended to kill his half-brother, Prince Maxen,” said Faustinus. “I am afraid that Lady Hildred was an accidental victim of his plan.”
Something shifted and fell into place in Brandon’s mind. Turning to Caedmon, he asked, “Did you say all the servants think Haley Randal had something to do with it?”
“Some of them, yes,” said Caedmon. “But as your daughter indicated, this may simply be a slanderous rumor intended to cast blame on—”
“No, no,” said Brandon, “not Merewyn. Broderick! I’ve seen him together with Haley several times—just the two of them, talking in secret. I assumed it was some kind of love affair, but perhaps it was a conspiracy, instead.”
“Now that you mention it,” said Caedmon, looking troubled, “I have observed the same thing, myself.”
“Me, too,” said Faustinus. “Broderick and Haley really do have a penchant for meeting in dark corners, don’t they?”
As he thought of it, a blinding fury rose inside Brandon. If Faustinus was right, then Hildred’s death meant nothing now. Her poisoning was an accident, a mistake. She had been killed out of vicious, reckless cruelty. She had died because Broderick was too much of a coward to kill Maxen in a duel, or even to knife him in the back.
“I think we might want to talk to Lady Haley sooner, rather than later,” said Caedmon. “Does anyone know where she is at the moment?”
“Not just her,” said Faustinus. “I do hate to mention it, but has anyone seen Prince Maxen recently?”
In a flash, Brandon understood the awful import of Faustinus’s question: if there were a conspiracy to kill the prince, then the killers would try again, no matter how many people stood in their way. The murders wouldn’t end with Hildred.
“I will speak with the sheriff again,” said Caedmon. “In the meantime, your grace, you and Faustinus should begin a search for Lady Haley and the crown prince.”
“You two can lead the search,” said Brandon. “I’m going to have a word with the captain general.”
“Your grace, I think that would be an extraordinarily bad idea,” said Caedmon.
“It probably is,” said Brandon, pushing past him and through the door, “but I really don’t care.”
He didn’t bother going back to his room; he would have to explain to his children where he was going, and then Robert and Philip would insist on coming along, too. He didn’t even know quite what he would say to Broderick, or what he would do if the man admitted his guilt.
I need to see the look in his eyes when I say it. I need to know for certain.
A guard in the corridor near his study informed him that the captain general was meeting with some army officers in the library. Brandon considered asking the guard about Maxen and Lady Haley. He considered sending the guard to find them, but Faustinus and Caedmon were taking care of that. It was time to find out the truth about Broderick. It was time to find out if his best friend’s eldest son was a vicious killer.
He found Broderick, framed by high, dark bookshelves, leaning over a table covered in maps. In the light of the big brass reading lamps, Brandon recognized a street map of Leornian, and a much larger map of all Trahernshire. The captain general had a stack of little copper farthings in front of him, and he was placing them here and there, presumably to stand for regiments or companies of men. A slim sergeant with a heavy mustache was taking notes, while Lukas Ostensen, heir to the duchy of Severn and Broderick’s best friend, made suggestions. Four other staff officers, plus Brandon’s own guard captain, stood in front of the bookshelves, watching silently.
The guard captain noticed Brandon first. “Can I do something for you, your grace?” he said, bowing low.
Keep your voice steady, now. Don’t let them think you’ve gone mad.
“Yes. I would like a word with the captain general. Alone, if you gentlemen don’t mind.”
After a moment of awkward hesitation, the other men all bowed and filed out of the room. Lukas Ostensen was the last to go, pausing to give Broderick a questioning look. Broderick nodded, and Lukas followed the others, closing the door behind him.
“So, what can I do for you, your grace?” Broderick asked.
Brandon walked over to the map table and studied the positions of the little coins. “You seem to be very busy,” he said. “I can’t help but wonder why my sister’s death requires a plan to send troops to...,” he leaned closer to read the tiny print, “Morley Wells.”
“I’m simply preparing for all contingencies.”
“Very wise, I’m sure. And yet even the best plan can fail, can’t it?”
With a rustle of mail, Broderick crossed his big arms. “What do you mean?”
“Someone, for instance, might take a handful of nuts from the wrong bowl. Someone like my sister.”
Brandon stared into the captain general’s eyes, daring him to look away, hoping for some tiny flicker of guilt or fear. But Broderick’s face was as unreadable as an empty page.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re talking about, your grace.”
“Did you do it?” Brandon pressed. “Did you have Lady Haley poison the nuts, hoping to kill Maxen?”
Broderick’s mouth twisted in an expression of disgust. “Where did you hear such nonsense?”
“Never mind that. Is it true? Did you kill Hildred?”
“I most certainly did not!” said Broderick. His jaw tensed for a second, but then his expression softened. “You’re obviously distraught over your sister’s death. Let me send a servant to find Lady Margaret and your sons. Or perhaps I could fetch one of my army physicians, and they—”
“Where is the crown prince? What have you done with him?”
With a shrug, Broderick glanced around the shadowy stacks of the library. “I don’t know how you think I’m going to harm him when he’s not here. If I know my brother, he’s probably at one of the taverns in Addle Street right now, getting drunk and feeling sorry for himself because none of the bar wenches will flirt with him.”
“What else do you have planned? How many other people are you going to kill?”
Now Broderick leaned forward over the maps, resting his weight on the knuckles of his clenched fists. “That’s enough. These accusations are beneath the dignity of the Duke of Leornian. I suggest you withdraw them.”
“And what if I don’t?” snapped Brandon. “Are you going to kill me, too?” Suddenly he wished more than anything that he had thought to bring a sword. “Go ahead!” He slapped the table. “I’ll challenge you to a duel!”
“A duel?” A thin, mirthless smile spread over Broderick’s face. “Maybe when you were in your prime it might have been interesting. My father always told me you were one of the finest swordsmen in Myrcia—even better than dear old Cousin Fransis on a good day. But that,” he lowered his voice, “that was thirty years ago. I think we both know who will win if we fight now, old man.”
“You’re scared,” said Brandon, trying to keep his voice steady, hoping Broderick wouldn’t mistake indignation for fear. “I will challenge you in front of the whole court, and everyone will see what a coward you are.”
Broderick chuckled, shaking his head. “No one will ever believe you. Even if I di
d what you said, no one will believe you. Least of all my father.”
“I wonder what Lady Haley would say, if we asked her.”
“I imagine Haley might say anything.” Broderick picked up one of the farthings and tossed it from one hand to the other. “I’m afraid I was obliged to...disappoint certain expectations that she had of me. Expectations which, as I’m sure you can imagine, I did nothing to encourage. Still, she’s quite an impressionable little thing, and you could probably get her to repeat any lies that you wanted. Finding any corroboration for her tall tales, however, would be another matter entirely.”
“I suppose we’ll see when Caedmon finds her,” said Brandon.
“No doubt we will.” Broderick sighed. “Now, I do beg your pardon, your grace, but I really must return to my staff meeting. On your way out, would you mind asking the officers to come back in?”
This is my bloody library, and he’s shooing me out of it like a servant! Maybe it’s a damned good thing I don’t have a sword with me. Maybe I should have listened to Caedmon and stayed upstairs.
At the door, Brandon stopped and looked back. “You think you’re so blasted clever, don’t you? You really think that you’ve thought of everything.”
“I believe you’ll find that I have, your grace. Good evening.”
Chapter 35
SHE TOOK EACH STEP slowly, worried she would fall. It was a ridiculous notion; she had run carelessly up and down these stairs thousands of times over the years. She blamed the wine and her agitation. But perhaps it stemmed from her deep desire to not die, marked a manifestation of the will to live. If Maxen noted her deliberate pace, he said nothing, warming his behind at her fire, a wide, stupid grin on his face. With effort that made her jaw ache, she smiled back even more ostentatiously.
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